#a nice summary of whats going on would be nice but i doubt anybody who knows would see my post

[jsdimensions]

the pain of only being in a tiny part of a fandom and wanting to get into the rest of the fandom but the rest of the fandom has so much stuff going on that I have no clue where to start

[cressidagrey]

It's a Love Story - Chapter 6

Summary:

Azriel's shadows find their master a wife.

Azriel would just really like his heart not to get broken again.

And Sky...well, she's just really surprised that that far too handsome male is interested in her at all.

Warning:

DEFINETLY NSFW! Rhys Bashing (as usual), I classified this as Azriel x OC, even when it't technically Azriel x Sellyn Drake (but we kinda know nothing about Sellyn Drake other than that she writes books so Sky is kinda an OC), Cassian is kinda a good guy for once, Azriel has a horrible time, as usual... Stuttering, toxic families (For once I do not mean the IC), Self-Esteem Issues, Secret Identity, Body Image Issues, Fat Shaming, People being utterly horrible.

If any of this triggers you or makes you uncomfortable, please take care of your own mental health and don't read it.

For somebody that filled her romance novels with plenty of smut… Sky wasn’t exactly as experienced as one may expected. 

Actually…she was woefully inexperienced.

There had been Admon…and Admon it had been.

The rest of the stuff in her books…well, that was just her fantasy wildly spinning stories about how sex should feel. Informed by plenty of books she had read, other authors, and of course…there were the two people that got to read every book she wrote before it was published: Orla, her publisher, and her friend Ressina, who was nice enough to take the pen to every thing she wrote that was woefully inaccurate. 

Because nothing ever felt to her like she portrayed it in the books.

Maybe that was normal. Maybe it was because of course her books portrayed something…better than reality, an escape from it. But still…sometimes Sky had just wondered…

As Azriel carried her towards the bedroom, Sky couldn’t help but feel a flutter of nervousness in her stomach. It wasn’t that she didn’t want this, she did, more than anything. But the truth was, she was…nervous.

She had written about this moment countless times, had described it in vivid detail in her novels. But now that it was actually happening, she felt…insecure. What if it wasn’t as good in real life as she made it out to be on paper? What if she did disappoint him?

(Sky knew that she had disappointed Admon numerous times…that she seemingly had never been enough for him…had been so bad at it in fact that he had instead slept with her sister…which was a whole other kettle of fish that she really didn’t want ot think to close about right now.)

Sky tried to push those thoughts aside, to focus on the here and now. 

Azriel was here with her, he wanted her just as much as she wanted him. She could feel it in the way he held her, the way he looked at her. And yet, that nagging feeling of doubt still lingered.

And then there was the fact while he had admitted to sending his shadows to search for her… Sky was still keeping a rather big secret.

“Az…Azriel…” she said hesitantly.  “There…there is one thing you should know about me.”

Azriel paused, setting Sky down on the bed gently before turning to look at her. 

"Go on," he prompted her gently, taking her hand in his as he sat down next to her and giving it a reassuring squeeze. "You can tell me anything, Sky." She believed him. he wouldn’t judge her. She was sure of that as well. 

“You…You k…know how…how I…I write… ro…romance no..novels?” Sky asked him, biting her lip.

Azriel nodded, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Yes, I do," he said, leaning in closer to her. "You told me.”

“I…I am Sellyn Drake,” she blurted out.

She had never outright admitted it to another person. 

Ressina had been the one who had send off her first manuscript to be published…and Orla had met with her…these were the two people in existence that knew that Skylar Alden was also Sellyn Drake. And Skylar had always been comfortable with keeping it that way. 

There was no need to tell anybody else. 

Which was why it worked so well, that Ressina was an artist and could paint the bookcovers for her. No need whatsoever to let anybody else see the hesitant first drafts until she was sure this was where she wanted to go. Just Ressina. Just one of her very few friends. If not her only. 

Azriel stared at her, his eyes widening in surprise. "What?" he asked, completely taken aback. "You're...Sellyn Drake?" There was no…outright disbelief in his voice, just shock. 

*We know! We made Master read your books!* the shadows cooed. *Lady Death, The Priestess and The Shopkeeper love them too!*

She had no idea who any of these people were but…

Azriel's eyes widened even further as the shadows spoke up. "You...you knew about this?" he asked them, turning towards the shadows in disbelief. "You knew. That’s why you gave me her books to read!”

This was just getting better and better.

Sky, who had been watching Azriel and the shadows’ exchange with a mixture of nervousness and embarrassment, couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. 

“Do…Do they always…” she couldn’t even put it into words. 

Azriel sighed. “They like to meddle,” he said darkly. “And this time they were particularly persistent.” He shot a reproachful look at the shadows, who cowered a little under his gaze. "I won't lie, they did manipulate me into reading your books. And when my shadows do something they are rather...convincing."

She swallowed. 

“Did…did you…li…like them at…at least?” Sky asked hesitantly. 

Azriel hesitated for a moment before answering. 

"I...I did," he admitted earnestly. "Your writing...it's brilliant, Sky.” Her heart soared at his words. She treasured them, hoarding them away like a dragon. But he wasn’t done. “The characters, the emotions, the way you make the reader feel everything...it's incredible. I couldn't put them down."

Sky grinned at his words, feeling a swell of pride in her chest. "I…I'm glad you..you li…liked them," she said softly.

*Master especially liked the…*

“Shut. Up.” Azriel snapped, his ears reddening and Sky started laughing. She could just about imagine what the shadows wanted to tell her at that moment. 

Azriel groaned, burying his face in his hands. "I'm going to kill them," he muttered under his breath.

"They…they are ju…just try…trying to help you, aren't they?" she asked softly, squeezing his hand in hers. Only now she noticed the violent scars that marred them, the texture of raised and bumpy skin…but she didn’t care. Not one bit.  

*Of course, we are,* the shadows said, like any other idea was simply blasphemous. *We gave Master the best information we could. So that Master would know what you like.*

Sky probably shouldn't find it as adorable as she did. But the lengths they had gone to...the way they had made Azriel read her books so that he would know what she liked...nobody in her life had ever gone to these lengths just to find out what she liked.

"I swear I am not a total creep," Azriel told her with a grimace.

Sky laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. "No…no, no, you're not," she assured him, squeezing his, hands gently. "I…I ac…actually think it's… quite… sweet. In a weird, sli…slightly invasive kind of way. But sweet nonetheless."

"I think you are the only female that could possible think that," Azriel muttered, glaring at the shadows that didn't seem apologetic in the slightest.

Sky grinned, leaning in closer to him. "It’s… endearing,” she finally settled on. “Maybe even a lit…little bit charming," she promised him earnestly.

Azriel looked at her incredulously, his expression softening a little. "You're not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?" he asked her.

Sky shook her head. "No. No, I'm not," she said, her voice unwavering. "I…I mean it, Azriel. It iss actually really sweet that you would go to… such lengths just to try to un…understand me better. And you ad…admitted to it. And not just after the mating bond was accepted but within hours of meeting me." 

Azriel didn't keep it a secret, even when he could have, and she would have been none the wiser. 

"I don't know what I ever did to deserve you. But I'm not going to question it," he whispered. 

She swallowed. That's what she was thinking. The exact same words. 

Sky pulled him down, letting his forehead rest against hers.

"I know that...that I am supposed to cook you something...but how disappointed would you be if I gave you one of those caramel bonbons in my purse to accept the bond instead?" she asked him softly, meeting his gaze. 

His eyes widened and he stared at her in pure, undiluted wonder. 

"I could not possible be dissappointed by whatever you offered me," Azriel whispered. "But...are you...are you sure?"

"I am being utterly selfish," she whispered. "Yes. I want you." She didn't care that people would have thoughts about it...that she was rushing into this. 

They were probably right. 

But Sky really didn't care. Sky only wanted him. Sky was ready to throw caution overboard and rush into this headfirst without a thought about the consequences, if that meant that she would get her mate.

"Then let's be selfish together," Azriel whispered.

With shaky hands she reached into her purse, finding one of the caramel bonbon she kept in there...unwrapped it out of the paper and then...then she offered it to him, lifting it to his lips.

Azriel looked at the bonbon, then at her, and for a moment she thought he would say something. But then his mouth opened and he took it from her hand... He chewed it, swallowing carefully, his gaze never wavering from hers. For a moment, they stayed suspended in that moment of tension, the only sound their breathing. And then, he leaned in, closing the distance between them, and kissed her as if she was the most precious thing in his entire world.

A Mating Frenzy had always been protrayed as animalistic in every book she read. So of course, Sky had written the exact same thing.

But it wasn't...not really.

Not for them. 

And being with Azriel was also a far cry from being with Admon...mostly because then it had often been...embarrassing and painful. 

Admon had always found something to criticise on her body...foreplay had been nonexistent, even when she had tried...and while he had been more than willing to use her mouth to find his own pleasure he had never returned that favour.

With Azriel it was different. Every touch, every caress, every kiss made her feel things she had never felt before. It was like her body was coming alive for the first time.

All her senses were heightened, every nerve in her body singing with pleasure, and Sky couldn't get enough of him. She wanted more. No, she needed more. As Azriel trailed kisses down her throat, she arched her back, pressing herself against him, her hands roaming over his body, exploring every inch of him that she could reach.

"Can I...Can I touch your wings?" she asked breathlessly, not wanting to...cross some unsaid line.

"Please," Azriel breathed out. "Yes, Sky, please." He lifted his wings, extending them out behind him, giving her free rein to touch and explore to her heart's content. As Sky's fingers brushed against the contours of his wings, Azriel let out a low, guttural moan, his wings twitching and shuddering at the sensation. They were massive and pitch black.

"They are beautiful," she whispered, running her hands over the silky black skin, feeling the warmth radiating from them.

He shuddered at her touch, his wings arching and trembling beneath her gentle caress. he leaned his forehead against hers as he gently tipped her back against the bed and she went willingly, wrapping her hands over the gleaming talons at the tip of his wings as she kissed him.

Azriel growled softly in response, his hands sliding up beneath her dress, opening the lacing in one fluid motion. As the dress fell open, revealing her body beneath, Azriel pulled back for a moment, looking down at her with dark, hungry eyes. "You are so beautiful," he breathed, his gaze roaming over her body.

She didn't even have the time to feel self-conscious, not when she was drowning in the waves of desire that shot across their bond from him. Not when her whole body seemingly trembled against his and she kissed him again, opening her mouth to his tongue.

He slipped open the dress and she opened her mouth, halfway ready to tell him how he could get the corset she wore off, but he already opened the lacing. "Why?" he asked her softly, as he saw the red indents left on her body, and she grimaced.

"Claire," she whispered.

She wore corsets usually for support, because her breast could get heavy and painful without the proper support...but she never laced them as tightly as she did when she saw her family. Or her sister. Then she pulled them tight, trying to squash her body to be something…something her family could stomach, something they maybe wouldn't comment on...she always failed.

Azriel hissed softly, his fingers lightly tracing the red marks on her skin. She knew that they looked horrible, and yet he looked...angered? Almost furious. His expression softened as he looked back into her eyes, his fingers gently tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "Why would you do something like that to yourself, Sky?" he murmured, his eyes searching hers. "You are beautiful. You don't need to change anything about your body." He leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to a particularly hard imprint the corset had left.

Sky swallowed hard, feeling a lump form in her throat as emotion welled up in her chest. No one had ever said something like that to her, had ever made her feel like she was good enough just the way she was. She opened her mouth, trying to speak, but no words came out. Instead, she just nodded, feeling a single tear slip down her cheek. Azriel wiped it away with his thumb, his other hand coming up to cup her face tenderly.

"You are perfect," he whispered, pressing his lips to her forehead. "Just the way you are. Don't ever let anyone make you feel otherwise. Not even your family." Sky leaned into his touch, closing her eyes and just focusing on the closeness, the warmth, the feeling of being cherished and protected.

With every word he spoke, she felt a weight lifting off her shoulders, her fears and insecurities melting away. She realized that maybe, just maybe, she had found someone who truly saw her, the real her. Who accepted her exactly as she was, flaws and all.

It was so easy to sink into that. So easy to trust him. So easy to just kiss him, as she pushed the shirt he wore over his shoulders...to feel acres of gold skin, dotted with scars and dark markings...to bare him for her view and see how utterly gorgeous her mate was.

He growled softy as she ran her hand down his chest, tracing the scars that marked his skin. His body was a tapestry of pain and survival, yet she wasn't deterred. She only found him more beautiful for it.

"Mine," she whispered, pressing her lips to his chest, to one particularly nasty scar. "All mine." She could feel his heart pounding beneath her lips, the steady beat matching the rhythm of her own heartbeat. Her hands trailed down his chest, his stomach, until she reached the waistband of his trousers.

It was so easy.

So easy, to shed clothing until they were bare...so easy to press against him and feel warm, perfect skin...so easy to relax underneath him as he stretched over her...so easy to simply cup his face as she kissed him...as her legs wrapped around his hips and he groaned and she whimpered as she felt him...hot and hard and huge, pressing against her...She was dripping wet without him even laying as single finger on her beneath the waist.

Azriel didn't look unaffected, his breath coming in ragged pants, his eyes fixed on hers as they were blown wide and dark with want. He didn't move, didn't kiss her, didn't pull her closer. He only waited. Waited for her. 

"I need you," she whimpered. "Please. Please, Az." He let out a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl, his hips rocking gently against her, teasing them both with the heat and friction between them.

Nothing hurt. Nothing ever even threatened to hurt...Even as she could feel him notch against her there...even when she could feel herself lewdly stretched open on his cock...

It was so soft and gentle and sweet and…

It was everything Sky had ever wanted. 

Not the rough kind of fucking...not the animalistic coupling she wrote half the time...but she had wanted this. She had wanted sweetness and adoration and...love...and to be wrapped up in her mate's arms like she was a precious, precious thing. She had wanted whispered praised against her skin and to be touched like she mattered...

"Sky," he whispered, his hands running up her side, his touch was soft and soothing, worshipping her body. He kissed her, slowly, deeply, and there was something...almost overwhelming about it.

About the way he made her feel. The way he made her feel loved and adored. The way he made her feel cherished. Her hands wandered up to his back, tracing the muscles shifting beneath scarred, scarred skin.

She could feel him trembling, feel the tension in his body as he held himself back, but still, he moved in slow and gentle thrusts, taking his time. He worshipped her - every little gasp and moan, every curve of her body. He traced her shape with his fingertips and lips, exploring her as though he was trying to memorize every inch of her body.

She didn't know how long they stayed that way, their bodies as one, but Sky didn't care. She was surrounded by him - the heat of his skin, the sound of his breath, the way he whispered her name like a prayer. Sky could feel the love and devotion pouring through the bond, washing over her in waves, and she knew that this was exactly where she was meant to be. With him, in his arms, completely and utterly whole.

It nearly came as a shock as she came.

A breathless moan fell from her lips as her orgasm rushed over her, her body arching as she called out his name. He kissed her through it, murmuring praise against her lips as he held her close, his own release following soon after.

They stayed there for a moment, tangled together, both of them breathless and sated. Azriel's wings slowly wrapped around them, cocooning them in a warm, protective embrace that made Sky feel safe and cherished in a way she had never experienced before.

***

There was not one inch of his mate's body that wasn't utterly beautiful. From the tips of her arched ears, to her beautiful eyes...to the swell of her breasts and the dip of her waist and the soft flesh of her belly and the flare of her hips...she smelled so good too...especially now that their scents had started to mix, and he could breath in caramel and hazelnuts and cedars and the sweet, beautiful scent of happiness as she laid underneath him. His head was bedded on her stomach, as she drew short fingernails through his messy dark hair. He nearly wanted to start to purr as she scratched at his scalp.

Azriel felt...content.

More content than he ever remembered feeling. He was wrapped up in her, his mate, with her gentle hands in his hair, and he felt utterly and completely at peace. He didn't care if they never moved from that bed again. He didn't care if the world outside their little cocoon burned. So long as she was by his side, he was content. He had never felt like this before. He had never felt this...happy. This...whole.

"I need to go feed Hector," Sky told him softly, trailing her fingers through his hair.

"Can I just have the shadows kidnap him and bring him here?" he asked, not wanting to move.

"You can't go kidnapping my cat, Az," she chided him gently, but even as she said the words, she didn't stop drawing her fingers through his hair, and Azriel didn't move. He was far too comfortable.

"Why not?" he complained.

"You'll terrify him," she said with a laugh. "Besides, do you have cat food here?"

"I'll have the shadows find some Tuna," he mumbled.

"Do…Do they just ac…acquire whatever you tell them to?" she asked him with some amusement. 

And lots of things he didn't tell them to, as well. They thought he didn’t know. 

Azriel raised himself on his forearms, looking down at Sky with a glint in his eye. "You have no idea how many things I've acquired that way," he told her with a grin.

She lifted her hands, cupping his cheeks and pulling him down towards her, resting her forehead against his. "You're a menace," she murmured against his lips.

"Your menace," he replied, kissing her softly.

Sky smiled, a warm, slow curve of her lips that made his chest feel tight. "Mine," she agreed, her voice soft. "But no kidnap…kidnapping my cat. He's at home."

"We could make this our home," he protested softly. "Move in with me."

Azriel had no fucking clue what was even coming over him. They should have slowed down, stopped to think...but neither of them seemed to want to.

They just…they seemed utterly content to crash through what other people considered a normal timeline and just be together right now. 

He just wanted to be near her. He wanted to share a life with her, a home. He wanted to curl up with her in front of the fire on a cold winter's night, and spend lazy Sunday mornings in bed with her. He wanted to take her flying, and watch as she wrote and listened to her read the words she wrote. 

And he wanted - Gods, he wanted her to want that too. He held his breath as he waited for her response.

For a moment, she was silent, and Azriel wondered if he had stepped too far, asked too much too soon. 

But then, Sky smiled again, her eyes sparkling with emotions. 

"...Al…Alright," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'll…I’ll move in with you." 

Azriel couldn't help but grin as he pressed his forehead to hers. "Really? You mean it?" he asked, still unable to believe his ears.

"Really," she echoed with a laugh, before her expression turned serious. "But I…I have one co…condition." 

Azriel raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue. "What is it?"

"If I move in with you..." she began, wrapping her arms around his neck. "All my books need to come to," she told him seriously.

Azriel laughed, leaning back in to kiss her softly. "All your books can come, if that's what you want," he said. "As long as you're here, I don't care what else you bring."

And then the shadows unceremoniously dumped a screeching demon on the bed with them.

Sky let out a surprised yelp as Hector landed next to them with a thud, quickly scrambling away from the cat - and from under Azriel's weight. Azriel, for his part, sprang up, his wings flaring out in alarm. For several long moments, the three of them just stared at each other. Hector, his mismatched eyes glowing, his fur puffed up to twice it’s normal size, and Sky, her expression a mixture of surprise and affection as she looked at her pet. Finally, she cleared her throat. "Well, that's one way to introduce the two of you. Az, meet Hector."

...Gods, the shadows had really not been lying when they said that the cat was the ugliest thing they had ever seen.

Azriel slowly lowered his wings, eyeing the creature that was half-cat and half-demon. "He...looks like he wants to kill me," he said slowly.

Sky laughed, reaching out to scratch Hector's head. "He's just grumpy because he got teleported here so suddenly," she told him. "And he's not used to strangers." Hector's fur slowly flattened, and he began to purr, rubbing his head against Sky's hand. "Besides, he'd never hurt anyone," she added, looking up at Azriel with a smile.

Somehow Azriel highly doubted that.

Sky picked Hector up, cradling the cat in her arms as his purring grew louder. "See? He's not so bad," she told Azriel, moving towards him, and Azriel had to resist the urge to back away. "Hold out your hand, let him sniff you. He just needs to get used to you."

Azriel hesitantly held out his hand, trying his best to ignore the way Hector's eyes seemed to glow with an eerie light. After a moment, Hector moved forward, sniffing at Azriel's hand. Azriel felt the soft brush of whiskers against the palm of his hand, and Hector nudged his head against him, purring louder.

"See, he loves you!" Sky said enthusiastically

Azriel let out a laugh, slowly scratching the top of Hector's head. "I think he's just trying to lull me into a false sense of security before he scratches my eyes out, you know."

She rolled her eyes, "You are the most handsome cat I know," she cooed at him. "And you won't ever scratch out Azriel's eyes. No, you won't.”

Azriel would not quite go as far as describe the cat as handsome...but then...his own scarred hands weren't particularly beautiful either.

So Hector and him had that in common.

And the fact that they both wanted to cuddle with Sky. Actually, he was pretty sure that the cat hated him just for taking away his monopoly on that.

But Azriel would have shared a house with the King of Hybern if that meant that he got to have Sky in his bed.

She smiled at him, her eyes warm and adoring. "I knew you two would hit it off," she said, holding Hector in the crook of her arm. The cat stared at Azriel for a moment, as if sizing him up, before leaping off Sky's lap and disappearing under the bed with a soft patter of paws. "He'll warm up to you eventually," Sky assured him, but Azriel wasn't so sure about that.

He pulled Sky in closer to him, slipping back underneath the sheets with her, kissing her forehead. "I'll win him over, eventually," he promised her. At least, he hoped he would - he didn't particularly enjoy the idea of having to wake up with his throat being sliced open by an angry cat.

He would buy that damn cat all the Tuna in the world if that made Sky happy.

[delcakoo]

stupefy ‧₊˚ ⚡︎𓈒 p.js

for the anon who requested ravenclaw reader getting locked in a closer w slytherin jay, hope u find this :c

SUMMARY ! playing spin the bottle with your brother and his troublemaking companions results in you getting locked in a closet with his best friend, who seems to have noticed your staring throughout the night.

PAIRING ! slytherin!jay x ravenclaw!f!reader

WC ! 1.4K

GENRE ! sprinkle of fluff (?), slight suggestive, implied sexual themes from hee’s friends

WARNINGS ! making out, jay pulls your tie (so rude smh), he’s only cocky for a bit then he’s a blushy loser, mc is teased for being ravenclaw, hees being a terrible brother + his friends are just as bad

a/n: WHY DO I ALWAYS DELETE ASKS I FEEL SO BAD :c take this tiny jay fic cuz of anon’s indulging in my slytherin jay antics grhrgehbrgh

“YOUR TURN, Y/N!”

instead of being asleep like the rest of your nerdy house was, you were down in the potions room playing spin the bottle with the slytherins — or more specifically, your older brother heeseung and his annoyingly loud friends.

you've come to know a few of them quite well, especially one named park jay. it was as if the boy was sculpted by a greek god; perfect pointy nose and jawline sharper than a snake’s fang, cat-like eyes always seemingly harsh enough to pierce right into your very soul.

you were almost in a trance side-eyeing him half the night, but the sound of your name makes your head snap up, nervously adjusting your glasses, "h-huh?

“aw, look at the lil' raven," a girl named karina hisses in amusement, "it's your turn, cutie. don't be shy." you'd think heeseung, being your older brother and all, would stand up for you by now and tell his friends to play nice. but the slytherin male only smirked just as evilly as the rest of his housemates, staring down at you through his wavy black bangs without a hint of empathy. it really was a wonder how the two of you were even related.

as you gulp and move to grab the bottle, you feel jay's gaze sharpen on you even further.

please, please, anybody but him. you doubt you'd survive being in the supply closet with jay for more than a minute, any more than that and you'd probably faint on the spot.

with a last shaky breath you release the bottle, everyone turning silent as the glass quietly spins and spins. before you know it, the bottle begins slowing down. it goes past everyone at the table: first sunghoon.. karina…. heeseung.. yeonjun..

you freeze.

the bottle stops, and in utter horror, you look up to see the face of park jay smirking down at you, mischief evident in his shimmering pupils. of course your luck had to fall down the drain at the worst times, it was all too predictable. karina cackles, “yah, isn’t this too mean? jay, go easy on her!”

you desperately look at your big brother, who you always looked up to for help, but the emotionless boy is already pushing you towards the supply closet with a sinful grin, sunghoon doing the same to jay next to you. “w— hold on, hee i don’t want—“

“have fun!” slam.

you continue staring at the locked door, dumbstruck as the voices of the other slytherin’s slowly fade away. in one hopeless attempt of desperation, you reach up to test the handle a few times. the last source of light illuminating the room full of strange ingredients and liquids was a single hanging lantern, only increasing the dreadful mood.

“sunghoon has the key,” a raspy voice provides. you turn, eyes finally locking with jay’s as he perchs up against the wall, arms crossed calmly. you weren’t sure what it is you were expecting from this unlucky scenario, but it definitely wasn’t the usually wreckless slytherin maintaining a respectful distance from you.

though you notice that unlike your brother, his gaze reflected genuine emotion; a hint of pity showing through his pupils as you glue yourself to the ground anxiously. he looks even more perfect up close despite his untucked shirt and loose green tie, black cloak almost falling off on one side.

it’s tranquil for another moment before jay speaks up again, running ring-attired fingers through his raven bangs. “why were you staring at me?”

your mind blanks, unprepared for such a sudden call out. “i.. i wasn’t.. i didn’t stare at you,” you mumble pathetically.

the slytherin looks at you again with a knowing simper. you swear he whispered ‘cute’ under his breath, but you didn’t have time to dwell on it before he replied, “during spin the bottle,” jay refers. “don’t think i didn’t notice. your little glasses don’t hide anything.” with no response, you tilt your head down in shame and embarrassment.

suddenly, the boy pushes off the wall, stalking towards you ever so slowly. when you try to step back in response, a shelf full of potions nearly tips over as your back stabs into it.

you gasp at the contact, facing forward again to see jay right up in your space, hands pinning your sides in with a brow raised. “do you have a crush on me or something?”

you choke in horror, “what!? no!” he brings his face even closer to yours, watching for a reaction. when you don’t bother making an effort to escape or even turn your head away, he chuckles, small fangs poking through his pink lips as he realises you want this just as much as him.

before you can process it, the boy has taken your perfectly done blue tie through his fingers, rubbing down the material leisurely. “tsk tsk tsk.. little ravenclaws like you shouldn’t lie, could get you in trouble.” he suddenly yanks your tie harshly, grasping the material as you’re tugged towards him with a yelp, lips centimetres from his plump ones. “i can feel your heart racing,” he snickers.

you aren’t sure how you haven’t passed out yet; he was undeniably stunning up close, black bangs covering bits of his eyes, tongue poking out to moisten his chapped lips as he holds you against the shelf.

with a breathy exhale, you slowly reach a hand up to place against his own defined torso, grinning at the feeling of his own heart beating rapidly out of his chest. ”i can feel yours too,” you fire back teasingly.

at that, his smug expression staggers for a moment, processing your boldness in surprise. then, he smiles, reaching up to push a loose hair strand behind your ear. “caught me there.”

your smile grows a fraction. “jay,” you mutter, glancing at the locked door. the slytherin hums in acknowledgment, the sharp tip of his nose poking your own. “can you..”

he waits, “can i what, princess?”

you swallow, fingers wrapping all the way around the large wrist that’s calmly raking through your hair. “kiss me?”

jay’s cocky smirk returns, tilting his head evilly, “what’s the magic word? c’mon, ravenclaw’s should know all their manners,” he taunts.

your jaw ticks in irritation. instead of doing as the taller boy asks, you don’t think twice before switching your positions, pressing him into the shelf while kissing him just as you please.

jay groans in alarm at the feeling of your soft lips moving against his, visibly having an inner debate on teaching you a lesson or letting you have your fun. it seems he chooses the second option, allowing your hands to roam into his jet black roots while gently cupping your cheek as if you were a vase; broken into pieces if he touched you any rougher.

after a couple minutes more, you separate for air, staring at each other with glazed out irises. it was clear who had more experience; jay breathing half steadily while you nearly pant your lungs out, lifting a hand to wipe your steamed up glasses.

“do you think your brother’s gonna beat me up?” he suddenly asks, though not looking scared in the slightest.

you scoff in amusement, “no, he doesn’t care about me. he’s the one who pushed me in here, remember?” feeling irritated by the mere thought of heeseung, you step closer again to kiss him and distract the both of you, right when a lock clicking reaches your ears.

the closet is aggressively jerked open, a flood of light shining into the storage room. “time’s up, jay! get off the poor thing—“

everyone peeping into the closet pauses in confusion, taking in the sight of you caging a boy much bigger than you against a shelf, lips swollen and hair a mess as jay blushes in humiliation, pushing you off of him.

first sunghoon giggles, then heeseung begins to cackle, before they’re all laughing, grabbing jay’s shoulders and pushing him around, pinching his red cheeks and ruffling his hair even further. “getting pushed around by hee’s little sister? a ravenclaw, really bro?” yeonjun snickers playfully.

with that, the group of slytherin’s begin to walk off without sparing you another glance, much too preoccupied teasing the black haired boy. you begin to chuckle for a moment, feeling proud of yourself until through the midst of the chaos, jay meets your eyes furiously.

he rudely points at you, then raises it to his neck, making a cut throat motion.

you had a terrible feeling this wouldn’t be your last encounter with your brother’s best friend.

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[bartxnhood]

love you need | s.h

shawn hunter x fem!reader

summary: you notice shawn distancing himself from you and the group until one night she shows up at your door hoping to talk it out.

warnings: angst! both shawn and reader have some self doubt.

a/n: this is my first time writing for shawn, and tbh it’s been a hot minute since i’ve rewatched bmw so😭 but i really miss shawn and i relate to his character sm. so i might start writing for him now, this is just to test the waters. enjoy !

requests open

not proofread

Copyright © 2023 bartxnhood. All rights reserved. This original work is not allowed to be reposted on any platform in any format.

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you stand at your locker rummaging through your books searching for your history book. “hey!” topanga hollers, followed by cory. you push you locker door inwards revealing the couple. “have you seen shawn?” cory questions, you simply shake your head and close your locker. “no, why?” you ask, leaning against the metal. “i haven’t heard from him over the weekend. totally unusual, normally i csnt get rid of him” cory answers, your eyebrows raised. now that you think of it, he hasn’t called or stopped by to see you either.

shawn was the type of boyfriend to check in occasionally, even out of school. he’d often surprise you with small gifts just to lighten things up if you were having a bad day. so this was out of character for him, if he was sick or something came up he’d always tell you or cory. something wasn’t right.

“wel..” you trailed off, furrowing your brows. “we can call if he doesn’t show. surely he wouldn’t not show up and not have a reason or tell us” the other two agrees and decided to let it go for the rest of the day.

but a day turned into two, and next thing you knew he never showed that whole week. you tried desperately to call but each time it went to voicemail. you felt frustrated, why did he disappear all of a sudden? why didn’t he tell anybody? you were high strung for the remainder of that week. snapping at people when you didn’t mean to but, nothing was as important as shawn was to you.

“did i do something to upset him?” you’re laying on topangas bed. she invited you over to work on a project, but after you stayed for dinner. “what if he doesn’t want to be with me anymore? what if he found someone else.” your mind is racing, why else would shawn not come to school or return your calls?

you hear topanga sigh, and came to your aide. “y/n, look at me” you sit-up, looking at her. she puts her hands on your shoulder, “he loves you, y/n. i’m sure he has a reason for why he’s been gone.” you groan, she was probably right but it didn’t your heart from aching. “now, cmon. let’s go eat dinner, okay? get your mind off things.”

it wasn’t unusual for you to be home alone as your parents were typically on work trips. you had your own little routine after school. you’d come home, make a snack, do some homework, maybe read for a couple hours, shower, then go to bed. but today was different, after doing your homework you were pretty exhausted so you had just planned on laying down. thank god you we’re graduating in a few months, the work was beginning to run you down mentally.

it seemed no matter how hard yo supplied yourself, you always came in last. you were barely making the grades to pass your classes, but you were trying so hard.

as you were entering the bathroom, ready to brush your teeth and wash your face you heard banging at your door. of course, you didn’t want to answer because who would be banging on your door at this hour? but, something told you to answer it. you cursed at yourself mentally, you were too nice for your own good and your kindness would be your demise. but when you opened the door you didn’t expect to see him. “shawn?”

“i’m sorry for coming here so late but i just didn’t know where else to go.” shawn states as he runs his hand through his hair. your heart broke just looking at him. it looked like he hadn’t slept in days, his eyes were so dark, he looked beyond exhausted. “shawn, you don’t have to apologize. you know you’ll always have a place here.”

shawn took a seat at the edge of your bed he feels like his heart has been ripped out, all he wants to do is sleep and probably never wake up again. “i just” he rubs his eyes. “i got left alone again, dad went out. i just i didn’t have the guts to face you.” he feels so little, sitting in front of you like this on the verge of tears. “oh, shawn..” you cup his face making him look at you. “it’s okay, you know i’ll always be here. no judgement, shawn. it’s just you and me” you offer a smile.

you see the tears swell in his eyes. shawn wraps his arms around you and rests his head on your stomach. “i’m sorry” he says just above a whisper. “shawn, you didn't do anything wrong. there's nothing to apologize for." you feel him shake his head against your, “no, y/n. i’m sorry i’m not good enough for you.” tears begin to fall from his eyes and he hold on to you as if you were about to be ripped away from him.

“i live in a trailer park, i have nothing to offer you, you could do some much better than me..i don’t deserve you, y/n. you need someone who can provide and give you what you need..i don’t know if i can be that person for you, y/n” you can feel his tears staining your shirt. you remove his arms from your waist as you fall to your knees so you could be eye level with him. “shawn. listen to me” you wipe away his tears, smiling sadly. “you are good enough for me. in fact, i often think you’re too good for me because sometimes i think you could find someone better than me.” now you begin to tear up, confessing all of your bottled emotions.

“shawn, i have felt this toward someone as much as i have you. you’ve saved me so many times and you probably don’t even know it. i promise, you are good enough. you’ll always be good enough,okay? i’ll always be here for you, just let me be the love you need.” tears begin to fall from your eyes, so now the both of you are a crying mess.

“don’t cry, i hate seeing your cry” shawn hums, he wipes away your tears and rests his hand on your cheek. you nod, “i know..” sniffling.

there’s a moment of silence between you two, a comfortable silence. shawn is staring at you. admiring you, puffy eyes and all. he realizes how in love he is, that no matter what life throws at him that he will always have you. shawn softly rubs the pad of his thumb over your check.

“i love you.”

you blink, a few seconds of silence fills the room. he hadn’t said that to you yet, in your years of dating he hadn’t said he loved you, once. shawn was too afraid to love anybody. afraid that he’d ruin the person he wants to love. shawn was like that most of his life, until you changed his mind.

“what?” you feel all the air leave your lungs, your emotions were all over the place now. from crying to now feeling this warmth in your chest as you heard him say the words you had been waiting so long to hear. “say it again”

“i love you, y/n.”

instinctively you wrap your arms around his neck, embracing him in a tight hug. “i’ve been waiting to hear that for so long” you sniffle. shawn rubs you back, you feel him nod. “i know, i should’ve said it a long time ago.”

hours later, after the both of you had spilled your hearts to each other, you offered him dinner but he denied claiming he just wanted to lie down.

you rested comfortably on his chest, he drew circles on your spine. both of you enjoying the silent. “i want to spend the rest of my life with you.” you say. shawn is taken aback, looking down at you. “what?” you look up, smiling softly. “i know we’re still young, but there’s no one else in my life i’d want besides you. i want to be with you forever.” you see him smile, and he tightens his grip around you.

“i like the sound of that…y/n hunter…that has a nice ring to it”

[pedroshotwifey]

Creampie

Pairing: Ezra x F!Reader

Word Count: 5.4k

Warnings/Tags: No use of Y/N, oral sex (M receiving), Reader is a menace, piv sex, Creampie?, rough sex, established relationship, Slight food play, what who said that? (Previously "Added Ingredient" on ao3)

Summary: You can't sleep so you decide to occupy yourself with a project in the kitchen. Ezra is quick to distract you ;)

A/N: Hello again! This is probably my least favorite work that I've done, but it was only the second ever published lol. I did go back and make some edits so that it sounds/flows better, though. Despite that, I will say that it's not complete trash so I would appreciate anybody who gives it a chance! I will be posting my all-time favorite work soon after this one, so keep on the lookout for that! Thanks for reading :)

***

You had been staring at the ceiling for a good hour and a half before you finally decided there was no use in trying to get back to sleep. The last time you looked at the clock, it had been 2:27 am and you have been wide awake since. 

You sigh quietly in frustration so as not to wake your partner as you throw your covers back and slide yourself out of bed. The sight of Ezra still sound asleep makes you smile softly in the dark room. 

It seems that the only time that he looks truly at peace is when he can close his eyes and let go of any thoughts that plague his mind in the daytime. When he is awake you can always see something in his eyes—no matter how much he tries to hide it. You still haven't been able to figure out what it may be, but you do know that whatever it is, it haunts him. 

When you first started dating, you had asked him often if he wanted to talk about it, and each time he would turn you down. He only told you a little bit, gave you the gist of how he lost his arm, how he ended up on your planet, just the small things. It's obviously a sensitive subject, but you can guess that he will confide in you eventually if you give it a rest.

Still, though, it's like taking a fresh breath when you are able to look at him without traces of worry decorating his perfect face. The only lines that grace his appearance as he sleeps are the crowfeet by his eyes and the thin, curved scar on his left cheek.

Quietly bending down, you place a gentle kiss over the faded wound and you swear you see the corners of his full lips tug up a little. It warms your heart to see how much he responds to your touch, even subconsciously.

Being careful not to wake him, you stand up straight and reach for one of his faded t-shirts, pulling it over your bare torso. You have had many nights like this, so many in fact, that you have developed a routine; tug on a shirt, sneak out of your room in your panties and said shirt, pour yourself a glass of wine, and find something to busy yourself with in the kitchen, all while being silent enough as not to rouse your lover. 

It’s proven to work pretty well, the wine lulling you to sleep quickly enough that you are able to climb back into bed before sunrise, only to wake back up later that morning to cut a slice of whatever fresh pastry you had busied yourself with making while the wine was settling. Which is why you find yourself here now, quietly opening cabinets on your tippy-toes and pulling out ingredients to bake an apple pie. 

It’s one of your shared favorites between you and Ezra, the memory of your first date coming to mind. His plan had been to take you out to a nice new restaurant that had just opened up in your town. Ever the gentleman, he picked you up at 7:00 on the dot in his nice button-up and slacks.

You had been donned in one of your favorite cocktail dresses - navy blue with tiny black sparkles decorating the bottom, and a pair of black heels to match. The two of you had been friends for a while, but you had still been nervous to make the right impression and had tried on about four dresses before forcing yourself to wait at the door.

All doubt had been lifted, however, when you saw Ezra's jaw drop just slightly as you stepped out onto the front porch. The pure lust and adoration in his eyes had been enough to make you blush a bright shade of red, and you recall him doing his best to hold in a chuckle at your reaction. 

Everything had gone smoothly after that until you reached the restaurant—which had apparently closed for the night due to pipe troubles, and not called to cancel reservations. You could tell that Ezra had been a little disappointed because he wanted to be able to take you somewhere nice, but he didn't let it ruin the night, and neither did you. 

After reassuring him that all you really cared about was spending time with him, you went back to your place and baked an apple pie—because that was the only thing you actually had all the ingredients for— in your fancy clothes and all. Looking back, you can't imagine how the night could have been any better. 

***

He had only been on earth for a few years then, and you have been together ever since. He had asked you to move in with him about a few months after that, and you jumped at the opportunity, both of you already knowing what you wanted.

Caught up in your fantasy land of memories, you failed to hear the man in question sneak up and lean, hand in his pocket, against the doorframe. Blissfully unaware, you were in your element, and Ezra found himself unable to move from the spot he had settled in once he spotted you. 

You are flitting silently around the kitchen, an absentminded smile adorning your features, finishing rolling out a wad of dough. You look so damn sexy in his t-shirt, your lacy black panties peeking out from under the hem every time you reach your arm up to swipe a stray hair from your face with the back of your hand. 

His lips part and he feels his cock twitch when you bend down to pull a tin from a lower cabinet, giving him a perfect view of your ass. He has to suppress a groan and it takes everything in him to not jump your bones right this moment. 

***

You sigh as you finally finish rolling the dough out, bending down to grab a pie tin from the cabinet beneath you. You set it down and take a sip of your wine before starting to shape the dough in the tin, using a fork to press the edges down. 

Once satisfied with the way the crust lays, you reach to the stove beside you and grab the pot that holds the simmering apples. You give it a quick stir with a wooden spoon before beginning to scoop them into the dough-covered tin. 

When all the contents are in place, you set the pot back down and reach for the rest of the dough, only to be stopped when you feel a strong arm wrap around your middle. You yelp in surprise and have to steady yourself so as to not flip your halfway-done pie off of the counter.

“Fuck, Ezra!” You exclaim as you quickly realize what happened. You hear him chuckle darkly behind you before he presses a kiss to the side of your neck.

“Sorry, little dove,” he says between kisses, “It was not my intention to startle you.” Though his words are apologetic, you can hear—and feel—the smirk on his lips, and you know that he has absolutely no regrets about sneaking up on you.

Playfully rolling your eyes, you grab his hand and pull it away from your torso, spinning around to face him in his loose grasp. He must see the slightly guilty look mixed in with the loving gaze you meet him with because he frowns when he realizes that you probably think that you woke him.

“Don't worry your pretty head now, birdie,” he says, bringing his hand up to cup your cheek, which you lean into. “You did not rouse me, I woke with a dry mouth, I simply desired a glass of water before I noticed you missing from our bed.

You smile with relief to know that you didn't interrupt his peace, feeling a bit better about him being awake. He seems to be in a good mood, and when you look into his eyes, you see no trace of tiredness or stress. There are rare moments when you feel like you have Ezra completely to yourself, without having to share with the burdens of his past, and this is one of them. You lean into him, placing another soft kiss to his lips.

“I'm making an apple pie,” you state the obvious, unsure of what else to say. You almost laugh at the comment, and you can see Ezra trying to hold in his own chuckle. Out of all the things you could have said… 

“I’ll pour you a glass,” you say, breaking away and reaching for the wine on the island behind him. He says nothing but you can feel his gaze follow you as you pad across the kitchen to get another glass from a high cupboard. As you reach up for the handle, you hear Ezra’s breath hitch from behind you, and you smirk, realizing you must be giving him quite the show right now. You wiggle your butt a little as you grasp the glass and close the cabinet back. 

With your back still to him, you set the glass down and pick up the wine bottle, plucking out the cork and pouring a good bit into the goblet. Ezra is still glued to the spot you left him in so you bring his glass over and set it on the counter next to him, looking innocently up into his eyes as though you hadn’t been practically waving your ass in his face thirty seconds ago.

You can see the warning in his gaze as his eyes darken with lust, sending a wave of arousal to your core, but you pretend to ignore it as you bend around him to grab your own half-full glass, once again giving him a full view of your panties. You know it's not the best idea, but it was too enticing to pass up. 

As you straighten, you feel his hand deliver a swat to your behind, once again making you yelp. You jump up and shoot a look at him, which he reciprocates by raising an eyebrow as if to challenge you. You are not one to roll over and show your belly at the slightest show of dominance, so you silently accept his challenge.

You stare at each other in silence for a moment before you decide to continue your task, grabbing the remaining dough and the rolling pin. As you work, Ezra grabs his wine and leans against the counter beside you, seemingly deciding to truce for now. 

You can feel the tension in the air, both of you holding a silent competition, seeing who will be able to resist the other the longest. It takes all of your willpower to not give in, your panties sticking to your now-slick cunt a constant reminder of that. The ever-growing tent in Ezra’s pants makes you feel a little better about it though, knowing that he is stuck in the same dilemma. 

You make an effort not to look his way, knowing you wouldn’t be able to restrain yourself from giving in if you were met with his hungry gaze again. You force yourself to focus on rolling out the dough to an even consistency in order to distract yourself from the growing need to turn around and beg Ezra to bend you over the counter right this second. 

He sounds so fucking pretty when he has his cock inside of you, and the thought alone is enough to have you biting down on your lip to suppress a moan. You are pulled from your thoughts when you see Ezra shift out of your peripheral, probably to refill his glass. That theory is proven wrong, however, when you feel his hand snake around your neck to grasp at your cheeks, covering your mouth and effectively muffling your sounds of protest as he pulls you back into his chest. 

You gasp behind his palm as you feel the firm outline of his cock against the small of your back, already rock hard from your previous teasing. He says nothing as he rubs against you, seeking friction and making you bite down on a whimper. 

“F-fuck, Ez,” your words are almost incoherent behind his hand, but you feel him smile into your hair at the way they tumble from your lips, already desperate to have him close to you—to have him inside of you. Your stubbornness makes it hard to give in, but you decide to let him take the lead for tonight, and he knows that. 

You gasp as he tightens his grip and spins you around to face him, you can see the insatiable look in his eyes as he slowly trails his hand down to wrap around your neck, applying just enough pressure to make your mouth drop open in a gasp. He says nothing yet, but the way his eyes rake over your figure makes you shiver, his pupils take over the chocolate irises almost completely. 

When nothing progresses, you stand on your toes to try to capture his lips with your own, but he leans away just enough, his hand still firm around your neck. You give him a confused look, but he obviously has no intention of answering your silent question, instead choosing to let his hand fall to your shoulder. 

“On your knees, Dove,” he says with a smile, giving you a slight push. His voice alone is enough to make your weeping core clench around nothing, and you find your body following his order before you can even think about denying him. You let your knees hit the floor and you look up at him through your lashes, the only other option being to stare directly at the prominent outline of his cock right in front of you. 

As he locks his gaze with yours, your face flushes red and he lifts his hand to cup your cheek, smoothing his thumb over the heated skin. You open your mouth to ask him what he wants, but he takes the opportunity to slide his thumb into your mouth, effectively silencing you as you suck on the digit. The groan Ezra lets out is absolutely sinful, making you smile around him. 

“Go on, birdie,” he says, voice straining to sound level as he feels you swirl your tongue around the tip of his thumb. “Be a good little girl and take my cock out.” His voice sounds much deeper in his lust-drunken haze and you think to yourself that you would do anything he asks of you as long as he says it like that.

Your clit throbs at his words and you frantically bring your hands up to tug his sweatpants down enough to free his weeping cock and heavy balls. The sight makes your mouth water, causing Ezra to squeeze his eyes shut when he feels the wetness pooling around his thumb. 

“You want my cock in that tight little pussy, don’t you, you hungry little thing?” he asks, taking his thumb from between your lips. With your mouth free, you moan at the thought of having him stretch you out on his girthy length, filling you up in the most delicious ways only he can manage to do. 

“Yes Ez, I want it so bad,” you say, trying to hold your composure. “I want your fucking cock so bad.” You hear him chuckle tauntingly above you, but your eyes are now transfixed to his throbbing dick, unable to look away. 

“Is that so, sweet thing?” he asks with mock sympathy that would bring you to your knees if you weren't on them already. “Show me how bad, and maybe I’ll give it to you.” With his signal, you finally take his cock in hand, rubbing your thumb over the precum beaded at the tip before fisting him a couple of times, spreading the wetness down the entire length. Ezra groans above you and moves his hand to thread his fingers through your hair, trying to find some stability.

You smile as you lean forward, licking up the underside of his cock, right over the vein that runs from tip to base. When your tongue finds his slit again, you take his tip into the hot cavern of your mouth, making Ezra groan and buck toward you. You have to lean away from him in order to keep his cock from slipping all the way in, if he wants to be in charge, he's going to at least have to be patient. 

You can feel yourself growing wetter every time you elicit a sound from Ezra, the moans tumbling from his lips bordering on whines. The feel of his velvety skin sliding across your tongue is enough to make you whimper around him, both of your filthy sounds filling the moonlit kitchen. 

“Fuck, baby,” Ezra pants out, “doing so good sucking my cock like that, so f-fucking good…” His praise encourages you to take him deeper, letting him slide down your throat until you feel him hit the back of it, making you choke on his length. 

You moan around him as you feel your wetness begin to soak through your panties, your hips bucking for friction at the way the fabric clings to your cunt. Ezra sees your struggle and laughs tauntingly at you, eliciting an annoyed glare from you, though it's not very convincing. You move to pull your mouth away from him, but he knows you too well and uses his palm to keep you on his length, pushing you to him with a light pressure. 

“Aw, you poor, little thing,” he says with mock sympathy. “You started this with your teasing, and I'm not going to touch that pretty little cunt until you can convince me you are going to be a good girl for me.” He continues pushing you onto his cock as he talks to you, knowing that you will tap his thigh if it becomes too much. He picks up his pace after a few more seconds, pistoning his hips to chase the pleasure hidden within the warm cavern of your mouth.

You cry out at his words and look up at him with teary eyes. You know that he means it, this isn't the first time you have found yourself on your knees after teasing around him a little too much, and—as much as you hate to admit it—it probably won't be the last. The look of pure bliss on his face is almost enough to ignore the throb of your empty core—almost. 

Unable to say anything, you continue to work your tongue around him until you feel the way he starts to twitch and pulse. You know he is close and you bring a hand up to cradle his balls, making him hunch over slightly. Just as he is about to come, he grabs onto your hair and pulls you away with a pained expression. The disappointment written on your face when he looks at you is almost enough to have him coming undone anyway.

He moves his hand from the back of your head to cradle the side of your face as he squeezes his eyes shut and concentrates on his breathing. You say nothing as you watch him, confused as to why he didn't let himself come. Unable to help it, you moan when you feel your slick start to drip down your thighs, making Ezra open his eyes to look at you. 

“You did very well, birdie,” he says, wiping a rogue tear from your cheek. “But as much as I would like to indulge in the pleasure of watching you swallow my cum, I believe that feeling you come undone around my cock would easily surpass that.” You don't know if you should laugh or moan at his choice of wording. 

Before you can say anything, he reaches for one of your hands, gently pulling you up, only releasing it to tap on the counter in front of him. You smile as you hop up, spreading your legs and beckoning him towards you. Ezra groans as he lifts the hem of your shirt up, revealing your soaked panties to him. 

“Fuck, birdy, all this from my cock in your mouth?” He looks into your eyes as you smirk and nod your head. At your admittance, he brings his hand around to grab the back of your neck, pulling you into a sloppy kiss. You know that he can taste himself on your tongue as he kisses you hungerly, the thought making you even more aroused. 

“Need you, Ez.” You pull away from him just enough to whisper the words across his lips. Ezra releases your neck and backs away, moving his hand back down to play with the hem of your shirt.

“Need me how, gem?” Ezra asks you with a cocky grin that you would probably want to smack right off of his face if it didn't turn you on so much. He always teases you, making you beg until he finally gives in to your pleading. 

“You know what I want, Ez,” you say, tears welling up in your eyes. How long is the bastard going to have you wait this time? The fact that it could be a minute or an hour has you swallowing a lump in your throat—you need release, and you need it soon. 

“I don't think I do, birdie,” he says with mock misunderstanding. “Please, indulge me in your desires.” You ignore him and instead take your shirt out of his grasp, pulling it over your head to reveal your bare chest. You think it almost works for a second when Ezra's tongue darts out to wet his lips, his pupils blown even wider than before. Obviously, though, you were wrong, because he makes no move to touch you other than planting his palm on your waist. 

“Ezra,” you start to beg. “Please, I need you to touch me.” You look at him with your best puppy-dog eyes and bring your hands up to circle his neck. “You always make me feel so good, only you.” That seems to get to him because he finally starts to inch his fingers down to where you are dripping for him. 

You can't stop the shaky moan that tumbles from your lips as Ezra cups your wet heat, grinding his palm onto your clit ever so slightly. Your hands unravel from his neck and find purchase on his shoulders, grounding yourself so you don't buck your hips and fall off the counter. 

“P-please, Ez, I need it so bad,” you tell him, voice almost a whisper. “I know, birdie, I've got you, I'm going to make you feel good,” Ezra tells you in response. He brings his hand to one side of your panties and you bring your hand to the other, both of you working to tug them down your legs as you lift your hips up. 

You are now completely bare in front of him and he takes a step back, smirking as he admires the view. Neither of you say anything for a moment as he takes you in, his eyes lingering on your chest before he closes the gap again. This time, his mouth goes straight to one of your breasts, lips wrapping around your nipple, his tongue immediately lapping at the stiffened bud. 

Your hands wrap around his head as he continues his gentle assault, only breaking apart for a moment when he murmurs something about “perfect fucking tits”, which almost makes you giggle. After he seems to have gotten his fill of your breasts, he drops to his knees and spreads your thighs, allowing him a perfect visual of your sopping cunt. 

Just as he moves his head forward, you stop him, looking at him with pleading eyes. You suddenly realize that you don't think you can wait that long to have him inside of you—if he started eating you out right now, he wouldn't stop until you were screaming after multiple orgasms. You want him now. 

“Ezra, please, I need you inside me,” you say it so frantically that it's almost embarrassing, but you ramble on all the same. “Can't wait for you, please.” 

“Are you sure, gem?” he asks, starting to stand up. “You know how much I love to taste you, there is truly nothing sweeter than the nectar you release for me.” He playfully tries to convince you otherwise, secretly loving the desperate look in your eyes he knows he put there. 

“Yes, Ez, im sure,” you cut yourself off as you grasp his t-shirt, bringing him in for another searing kiss. You can feel him smile against your lips as his hand falls back down, pulling the front of his sweats down to reveal his cock once again. When you pull away, you sneak a look and your jaw drops at how hard he is—that has got to be painful. His tip is red and weeping, precum dribbling down his shaft. 

Much to your dismay, you moan at the sight, your mind completely overcome by the need for him to be inside of you. When you look back up, you blush when you see Ezra staring at you with an amused look. 

“Like what you see, little bird?” he asks playfully. Your body seems to have a mind of its own as you feel yourself nod and scoot your hips up, trying to reach him subconsciously. He only chuckles as he wraps his hand around himself, lining his tip up to your entrance. 

“You’re sure you don't want me to warm you up, sweet thing?” he asks, worry marring his features for a moment—even he knows he won't be the easiest thing to take without some help. You almost melt on the spot, he can be so sweet, always making sure you are comfortable with what's happening, even if you are the one who had quite literally begged him for it. 

“I'm sure, Ez,” you say, little does he know, you look forward to the stretch. You have always liked a little bit of pain with your pleasure. With your confirmation he pushes forward, his eyes squeezing shut as his mouth drops open in a silent groan. 

“Fuck, birdie,” he says with bated breath. “You feel so divine, always so tight, squeezing the life out of my cock.” He is only about half of the way in, and every time he thrusts, it feels like it should be the end, but it just keeps coming. Your breath is stolen from you when he finally bottoms out, his tip already kissing your g-spot. 

“F-fuck,” is the only thing you can get out as you let your head fall to his shoulder. He stays still for a moment, allowing you to get used to his size. Only when you start to buck your hips does he begin to thrust again, bringing his length almost all the way out before slamming back in, effectively making you scream. 

The power of the movement sends you back and you cling to him so you don't hit the wall behind you. The kitchen once again fills with the sounds of your moans and Ezra's grunts as the two of you set a steady rhythm against each other. You bring your arms back, letting one hand land on Ezra's side, and the other goes under his arm to claw at his back.

You can already feel the bruises forming from Ezra's death grip on your hip, and you're sure he feels the same where your fingertips are digging into his flesh. As Ezra whispers sweet praise into your ear, you leave open-mouthed kisses on his neck, your saliva starting to coat the skin there. 

“Oh, gods, Ezra,” you moan as you pull your lips away from him. You let your gaze drift downward to watch his cock being shoved into your pussy, coming back out coated with your slick. The sights spurs you on and you look up at Ezra, bringing the hand that was on his hip up to grasp his chin and pull, making him look at where you connect. 

You can feel your orgasm quickly approaching, the wire threatening to snap when you hear Ezra fucking whine as he looks where you want him to. After he is able to break his gaze away from the sight, he looks back up at your face and leans in to capture your lips with his. 

“Are you fucking trying to get me to come early, you naughty girl?” he asks, looking you dead in the eye. “Like some fucking teenager, unable to pleasure their recipient, huh?” he slams his hips with his last word, bringing you over the edge. He continues berating you as you convulse around him, going slack against him. 

“Making me look at how good that pretty little pussy takes me in, how much she looks like she was made just for my cock.” Ezra’s filthy words quickly bring you to the edge once again, his pace never slowing as you immediately approach your second orgasm. 

“Go on, sweet thing, touch yourself for me,” he demands. “I know you're close, rub that little clit, I know you want to.” Your fingers find your bundle of nerves before you even realize you moved, your brain too fucked-out to understand what's going on at this point. Ezra must see your surprise because he chuckles darkly, you see his chest rumble through your half-lidded eyes.

“P-poor little bird, already cock dumb and I've only—fuck—only made you come once,” he teases you and you can feel his cock twitch, his words having an effect on both of you. You're lucky he talks so much because you have officially found yourself speechless. Suddenly, you remember what you were supposed to be doing before he so rudely interrupted you. 

You know you are about ready to break any second now, so when you let your fingers graze your clit, you immediately fall apart. You scream as a white-hot pleasure takes its course through your entire body, a feeling you have only felt a handful of times in your life. Your eyes widen as you understand what is happening. 

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!” you practically yell the words as you feel Ezra being pushed out of you, the force of your orgasm leaving no room for him. It must be perfect timing though, because Ezra doesn't try to push back in, instead, he pulls all the way out and starts to jerk himself off above you. You are still circling your clit, riding your release out as he starts to throb in his own hand, the image of you soaking his cock triggering his own orgasm. 

“F-fuck, birdy,” he says, his voice strained. “Look so—oh shit—look so good squirting for me, drenching my dick like a good l-little girl.” As the last word leaves his mouth, he begins to come, his spend splattering across your bare stomach and onto the countertop to the right of you. Normally, you would fuss about the mess, but right now, you are far too blissed out to give a fuck. 

Ezra leans forward as he finishes, both of your sweaty bodies collapsing onto each other, breathing heavily. If the countertop wasn't so cold against your ass, you would probably fall asleep there—you're tempted to ignore the cold and drift off anyway. Before you are given the choice, however, your eyes snap open at the sound of Ezra's sudden chuckles in your ear. You jolt upright and push him back, he is in absolute hysterics now and you have to look down to make sure you don't look stupid before looking back at him. 

“Ez, what the fuck is the deal w-” you are cut off as you look to your right. Sitting right next to you is your half-done pie… your cum-coated, half-done pie. You try, you really do try to hold your giggles in, but the bastard wiping the tears from his eyes right in front of you makes that an impossible feat, so you reluctantly join in. 

“Ezra, you fucking dick,” you scold him between giggles, “You came in my fucking pie!” The sentence sounds so ridiculous that it sends you both into a whole new fit of laughter. At this point, Ezra is doubled over and he has to walk back over to you to stay standing. After you both catch your breath, you look back up at him, trying not to laugh again as a new thought pops up into your head.

“Well, Ez,” you start, trying to hold your outburst. “Guess you’ll get to see me swallow your cum anyway.”  Yeah, there was no way you didn't lose it after that one—it's going to be a long, side-stitching night. 

[spaceagebachelormann]

the girl is mine . -> amber von tussle

✧ warnings: none !

✧ summary: amber stands up for you after you get unwanted attention from another council member

✧ ziggys notes: nobody can stop me from writing for amber she’s my pookie. also i genuinely believe that she became a better person after the movie!! based off that scene where amber yells at shelley and the song by brandy & monica ! also it’s kinda bad cause i’m getting used to writing for amber still

✧ word count: 483

✧ m.list — nav.

“and that’s the wavin’ raven! we’ll back after a quick break!” “we’re off!”

“amber!” tracy called, sprinting over with her classic big smile which amber returned. “you did so well!”

she was joined by link, who added, “you’ve really gotten a lot better since your mom got fired.”

she laughed. it was true, she had gotten better since maybelle had started teaching them to dance instead of mrs. von tussle.

the three talked for a few more minutes while they had their quick break, joined by inez and seaweed a few moments later, not noticing the situation happening across the room.

“well, last time i heard from her, brenda said the father was—” “amber!” inez had interrupted suddenly, pointing across the room. “look!”

and there it was.

y/n, looking rather uncomfortable, backed into a corner by fender, a council member amber had never been typically fond of.

“isn’t that your girl?” seaweed joined in, a slight look of concern across his face.

amber didn’t even respond, and nobody could say anything else until she strutted over and gently took y/n’s hand and pulled her away from fender.

“y/n, baby, good job dancing today!” she said in a sweet voice, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “why don’t you go talk with tracy or corny or someone? i’ll be there in a moment.”

y/n only smiled and went to talk to inez and seaweed, since they were the closest to her because they wanted to get a better look at amber yelling at fender.

“that’s your girl? really? much rather she’d be mine, she’d probably be better off.” fender said, watching with a slight smirk as she walked off.

“i’m sorry,” amber began, trying to hide her annoyance under her sweet voice despite the tone she was taking on. “but you seem to be confused.”

“i’m anything but confused. i mean look at her! she’s pretty, smart, has a nice body—“ she had stopped listening after that, letting out a soft scoff.

“the girl is mine.” amber said in a harsh tone. “if you try something like that again, you’re gonna get kicked so hard in the d—” lucky for him, he was saved by corny, who seemed to have noticed something going on.

“fender, would you please help me make sure everyone looks perfect?” “but—“ “great!” corny gave him a charming smile with eyes that held a warning in them.

when fender was gone, he gave amber a look. “i know what he did was.. well, not right, but you can’t keep threatening everybody. go talk to y/n, after that i doubt there’s anybody else she’d want to see other than her girlfriend.”

amber only sighed and nodded, her anger fading away as she went to speak to her girlfriend, as if nothing had happened at all.

[mabelstone]

The Maid

matt stone x reader

summary: you're the maid of a multi-million dollar CEO who clearly has a fetish he's not trying hide.

word count: 1212

note: this fic will be 18+ <3

this chapter itself isn't, but part two will be.

i hope you enjoyed! i'm really excited for this one :)

Part One

You made your way to the gate of quite possibly the largest house you’d ever seen. You rang the buzzer and waited patiently, the gate swinging open soon after. As you walked up the long driveway, you watched a tall, suit clad man walk through the massive double doors of the mansion.

“Mr. Stone,” you approached the man with a warm smile. “I’m Y/N, I’m here for the cleaning job. Nice to meet you.”

“Matt, and likewise.” he corrected you with a smile, stepping out of the way and beckoning you in with single hand gesture.

“Wow, your house is beautiful,” you gawked, sure your eyes were mistaking you as you looked around the gorgeous open floor. Several floor-to-ceiling windows, dark hardwood floors, and the most incredible modern living room and kitchen. You didn’t know much about Matt, other than that he was the CEO of some successful architectural firm.

“Thank you, I designed it myself.” He chuckled at your reaction, no doubt he got the same from others often. “You’ll be getting very familiar with the place but let me show you around.”

He led you through each room on the first level, then up the large spiral staircase, revealing multiple other rooms. “Do you live alone?” You asked, partly because he was the most handsome man you’d ever seen, and partly because you couldn’t understand why anybody would need this entire place to them self.

“At the moment, yeah.” He replied blasé, not saying anything further on subject.

Once he’d given you a tour of the place, you noticed he skipped over one of the rooms, the only one with the door closed. “What’s in there?” You asked.

“Don’t worry about that room, you won’t need to go in there.” He probably realised how creepy he sounded, flashing a smile before adding, “it’s a spare office. Hardly ever used, so no need to clean it.”

You nodded with a breathy laugh, following Matt into one of the spare bedrooms across from his own. “Here’s your uniform.” He showed you to the neatly folded black clothes on the bed. “Each day, wear your normal clothes here and then change into your uniform. I'll have them washed for you.”

You’d had experience in maid work prior, but never once had you been given a uniform. You found it sort of strange but brushed it off. For the pay you’d be receiving working for him, you’d wear a plastic bag if that was his request. “Once you’re changed, meet me in the kitchen and we’ll get started.”

With a smile, he closed the door behind him, and you listened to his footsteps recede. You unfolded the uniform, your breath hitching slightly. It was one of those old-timey maid uniforms that was quite short with a pair of thigh high stockings. It looked like it had come straight from the closet of a porno. You began undressing, wanting to be fast to make him happy so he’d keep you around. You slipped off your blouse and pants before putting on the uniform. It surprisingly fit perfectly. You walked to the mirror in the corner of the room and your jaw dropped. The uniform cinched your waist and pressed your breasts up nicely, the lower half hugging your thighs in a way far too provocative for work. You kept reminding yourself why you were here, shaking your head before folding your old clothes and placing them back on the bed. With a deep breath, you grabbed your supplies and left the bedroom.

Your heels clacked against the wooden stairs as you made your way toward Matt. He looked up at you with a smirk, a breathy, “that fits good,” falling from his lips.

You blushed murmuring a shy, “yeah, it does.”

“Alright, I’ve gotta head to the firm, but you can get started down here.” He walked you through some spots that needed attention and showed you to his vacuum and steamer. You know, the boring maid stuff you were used to. “Also, I’m having a party tonight, so if you can do a quick job, I’ll let you off early.”

“Of course, Matt.” You smiled, making a start in the kitchen. He answered a phone call as you began wiping down the long, stone island in the middle. He sounded frustrated, huffing, and using harsh words, yet his tone was even. You felt his eyes burning through you as you bent over the island, struggling to reach. Your uniform was so short that the bottom of your ass cheeks were peeking out. You looked up at him, blushing, his eyes never once leaving your figure. You felt an odd surge of confidence knowing he liked what he saw. He’d only be in his early thirties, yet there was something about him that made him seem so dominant. Like an older, well respected man. He frustratedly hung up the phone, grumbling, “I’ll be there soon,” eyes still glued to you.

You bent over further, standing on the tips of your toes so you could ‘reach the edge,’ causing your dress to hike up higher, knowing damn well you could just walk around. Through rosy cheeks, you looked over your shoulder and sweetly stated, “you must be so stressed.”

“It’s all part of the territory, I guess,” he replied, rubbing a hand over his face. You stood up properly, walking over to your supplies to grab the table polish, the clack of your heels echoing in the large house. “I’d love to watch you work your magic, but apparently these morons can’t function without me. I shouldn’t be gone too long. Help yourself to anything, by the way.” And with a final glance up and down at you, he left.

Once you'd finished downstairs, you made your way to the upper level, working your very hardest to have the place sparkling. His furniture was made of the finest leather, his bedroom gorgeous with a luxurious ensuite consisting of twin sinks, a double headed shower, and a ginormous spa bath. He had a tall king bed and a TV so massive, you could probably see what he was watching from down the street. And your personal favourite part, his private balcony overlooked the gorgeous, green landscape; a cutesy table and chairs in the corner.

Surprisingly, his house was already quite clean, so the job was finished relatively fast considering the square footage. Which is why you couldn't understand why he would hire a maid in the first place, it didn't make any sense. Maybe simply because he could afford a maid? You weren't sure, but you weren't complaining either. Easiest $500 of your entire career.

Out of curiosity, you wanted to see what was in his 'spare office.' You had a suspicion that the room was not an office, but rather something he was trying to hide. Why would that be the only door shut?

You turned the handle, and to your surprise, it was unlocked. You walked in unsurprised. Maybe he was telling the truth? Before you left the room, you noticed the room lead into another smaller room, almost like a walk in wardrobe. What you saw made your jaw drop.

"No fucking way," you whispered in disbelief.

Half freaked out, half really turned on.

[meenawrites]

Trudy and the McCoskers

So... we all know Spider had a shitting time with his supposed foster family. Now in my AU, I imagine he'd still be given to the McCoskers at some point because a majority of the involved parties are saying that it would probably be better for Spider to be raised in a two-parent environment, and I'm imagining the McCoskers are the only real couple on Pandora. I think Trudy would be pretty against it at the beginning, but the others wear her down and she doubts herself because what the hell does she know about raising a child. 

(The below is like a pseudo-writing summary of how I would see it going down. I'm considering turning these into an actual fic but we'll see. Just going to share my ideas for now.)

So she lets him go but she makes sure to take him aside before them. She crouches to his level holds him by the shoulders gingerly. 

"Kiddo, I want you to know that I'm here if you ever need anything. I'm sure they're nice people, but if they say anything you don't like or even look at you in a bad way, you don't hesitate to come find me okay? You got that?"

I imagine Spider wouldn't really understand why he has to go live with these people but he's comforted by the fact that Trudy is there as his backup. 

The few weeks Spider is in their custody, Trudy's a bit of a mess. Now that she's not constantly looking after Spider, she doesn't know what to do with herself anymore and finds herself pacing aimlessly. 

She tries to give them time to adjust and maybe be a family, but eventually she caves, and she has to go see him. At first, she thinks Spider seems fine, though there is something off about him. He doesn't seem super comfortable with the McCoskers but Trudy thinks they just need more time. Her instincts are screaming at her that something is wrong though, so she starts dropping by unannounced, and figures out after seeing through a few of their bluffs that the McCoskers have no idea where this kid is most of the time. She realizes it with certainty when she drops in and they're having dinner, but Spider isn't there. It's almost Eclipse and he's not there, and his supposed foster parents seem not to give a damn. 

Trudy is about to snap but decides she'll deal with them later. She immediately goes out to look for Spider, who, when she finds him kind of just sitting near the edge of the forest, holding his knees to his chest, looks shocked that she came. Or that anybody came to find him period. He seems completely fine though otherwise, and she pulls him to her. All she notices is that Spider immediately clings to her and buries his fists in her clothes, as if scared she'd let him go, or as if he hasn't been held in a long while. Trudy has never been so angry in her life. 

She takes Spider back to her room, tucks him into her bed, and promises to come back as soon as possible. She unceremoniously goes to wake Norm and Max the hell up and drags them to wherever the McCoskers live because THEY were the ones who convinced her to give Spider to them and yet no one but she had bothered to actually check up on how he was doing and she is FURIOUS. She gives all of them a good verbal lashing, barely holding it together enough not to start throwing punches. She calls the McCoskers all the swear names in the book (and she's got an expansive repertoire so it doesn't end quickly) and threatens their lives should they ever so much as pull on a single hair on Spider's head. 

Then she wheels on Norm and Max and shouts at them for not following up with Spider, for thinking that being raised in a two-parent household was the primary thing to secure for him. It doesn't mean shit if they don't actually care for him. She's just so incredibly angry, especially at herself for not having checked in on him sooner, for not having been more interrogating and assertive about his wellbeing, and for letting the scientists convince her this was the best course of action for the kid. She might not know much about good parenting, but she knew what NOT to do. And more than that, she CARED, so she decides to bury all her doubts and declares that Spider is HERS from there on out, and stomps out. 

Spider's been waiting anxiously for her to come back, and she softens upon seeing his scared eyes. She comes to him and sits on the edge of the bed, telling him in a gentle but fierce voice that he would stay with her from now on and he would never have to go back to those people. That Spider belonged to her now. It's this claiming of him, the feeling of belonging to someone that starts the kid's rare display of waterworks. He clings to her fervently and she eventually gets him to confess that the McCoskers hadn't done anything violent to him or anything, they had simply... ignored him. Which hurt so much more. They didn't really look at him, told him where the food was but didn't make any for him, got annoyed when he asked for permission to go outside, and just generally barely talked to him. They basically just dismissed his existence, made him feel incredibly unwanted and a burden. Spider started spending more and more time outside of the house because of that, not wanting to come back to a house so lacking of warmth. He thought parents were supposed to give off the feeling that Jake and Neytiri did with their kids, so when they did it, Spider thought it was his fault, that something was wrong with him and that was why they didn't seem to want to interact with him. 

Trudy mentally contemplates going back and committing murder, but decides to focus back on the kid. He's hers now and she's going to give him the best and most love and care she could. 

[how-masterful]

Remastered

Dhawan!Master X Reader

Chapter 8: The Snowmen

Summary: Christmas. 1892. You decided long ago that you and the Master were finished. Broken up. Done . But dark forces are brewing, and winter is on its way. Can saving the world from evil snowmen be the thing that finally gets you and the Master back together?

Notes: Good gods, I make a promise to not rewrite an entire episode again, and guess what I go and do! Many apologies that this didn’t go up in December, somehow I managed to forget just how busy things could get during the holidays. But better late than never! This fic is a biggie, clocking in at just under 16.5k words. So, grab a snack, a hot drink perhaps, but definitely get comfy. I hope you all enjoy, and i look forward to all the new fic’s i’ll be posting this year. Stay tuned! (ps, I hope this is a suitable bed time story @plethora-of-imagines​!)

Warnings: Cannon Typical Violence, Mild Language

The Rose and Crown was bustling with life. The merriment, and fervent drunkenness, was palpable within the London tavern, the regulars happily knocking back tankard after tankard. It always was this time of year, the bitter cold being drowned by the warmth of alcohol, a saving grace for those who had to work a hard day's graft. Sweeping through the days end crowd you slid the empty mugs onto the metal serving platter, patting the back of a familiar friend, and saving a drink from being knocked to the floor from an exuberant mid-storytelling gesture. You smiled, giving a small wave of ‘you’re welcome’, before disappearing out the back door. 

The pot wash was a small trek away now, considering the landlord had yet to find somebody to fix the broken side door- which you presumed to mean he couldn’t find anybody cheap enough to finish the job. He was a nice man, probably, when wasn’t underpaying you, staring at your chest, or getting drunk off his own stock. You could tell he was meant for better things, things not involving women or alcohol. That was the Victorian way. Not much different to the 21st century.

As you let the door latch shut, you turned to head across the back courtyard, when the sudden rush of wind bristled behind your back. Spinning around, you raised an eyebrow at the far corner. Where once had stood a propped up broom and an empty barrel, now stood a large snowman. A bulbous head sat upon a tall, wide body, its eyes a deep and narrowed black, its mouth a small slit in the snow- filled with razor sharp teeth, much like fangs. Instantly, you dropped the serving platter, sitting it down upon the pile of crates behind the back door. 

The courtyard had seemed to become chillier, your fingers grappling to pull the red shawl across your front, tucking the ends into the ribbon of your dirtied apron. The snowman seemed normal, upon inspection, your arms folding across your chest as you leaned in to take a look. You studied the creation carefully- any normal person would say it was the handiwork of an excited child, happy to receive the first snow of the season. But this felt… different. The way the eyes seemed to watch you, the way the teeth seemed to multiply the deeper you looked into its snarling grin. 

Something about this snowman felt… off. Otherworldly. Evil.

“I doubt he pays his barmaids to make snowmen on the job.”

A familiar voice called from the alleyway, leading back towards the street. At the sound you rolled your eyes, taking a deep sigh, your shoulders pushing back instinctively as the figure emerged from the shadows and into the courtyard.

“Not in this economy, anyway.”

“Ah, no wonder I had a gut feeling of otherworldly evil. It was just you.”

The Master smirked, his boots leaving heavy footprints in the snow.

“Aw, bless. You’re still so kind to me.”

“It wasn’t a compliment. Any reason why you’re skulking about and making snowmen outside my pub?”

You gestured towards the strange snowman, and the Master sent you a strange expression, stepping deeper into the courtyard.

“Am I not allowed to take a walk in my own city? And I've got much better things to do with my time than sit around building stupid snowmen.”

You rolled your eyes once more, giving a small, huffing sigh.

“Well, it wasn’t here earlier. And nobody else is strange enough to be wandering around in this cold.”

The time lord gave a similar sigh, before pulling a pair of glasses out of his top pocket and perching them on the bridge of his nose. The Master narrowed his eyes towards you, looking you up and down, as if inspecting you. In return, you did the same. He’d abandoned the creepers and cuffed pants for a pair of chelsea boots and long trousers, marrying his costume of gentlemanly standing with a woollen waistcoat and a familiar long, deep purple coat- this time lined with a woollen lining, a matching scarf slung around his neck, paired with a top hat perched atop his hair, now curled and refined instead of flailing madly. He’d even taken a razor to his jaw, his face now smooth and beardless. You hated to admit it, but he looked incredibly handsome. You shook the thought away- you shouldn’t be thinking that anymore.

The Master stepped closer to the snowman, and you followed suit, inspecting the mound of sculpted snow closely. He reached out and snatched a lump out of the side, crushing the small snowball within his grasp.

“Maybe the snow got bored of sitting on the floor, and turned itself into something more remarkable. Maybe, the snow remembered how to make a snowman. Maybe, it remembered how to have fun once in a while.”

You scoffed quietly by his side.

“There’s no need to be so condescending,” you said sharply, copying his gesture with the snow. You inspected the ice crystals closely.

“It was never your best quality.”

The Master turned to face you, one hand falling to his hip.

“If I recall, you were quite fond of it.” He jabbed, pulling away from the snowman.

“Not when it’s directed at me, it’s not.”

“And why is that?”

“Because i’m-” You stopped yourself in your tracks, biting your lip at the words that almost fell from your tongue. The Master waited expectantly, the familiar look of superiority plastered across his face when you couldn’t finish your argument. With a satisfied hum he removed the glasses from his face before sliding them back into his breast pocket. He shoved his hands in his pockets before turning on his heels, the Master heading back towards the shadows.

“Pretty girls that can carry trays are easy to come by, so I suggest you get back to work unless you want to end up even further below the poverty line.”

He called over his shoulder. You scowled, pressing your lips tightly together before following him out of the courtyard and into the alleyway.

“You looked better with a beard.” You lied, your anger searching for any insult that could dig at his vanity. The Master gave no reaction, a growl emerging from your throat.

“I’d say don’t catch your death, but that’d be preferable. Bare faces don’t do well in the cold.”

The Master paused and turned around once more, the twinkle in his eye still infuriatingly beautiful.

“Very cute, but I'm not the one who has to rely on candles and gropey factory workers tipping well to keep warm.” He replied, turning back to face you before he reached the corner.

“I’ve got a TARDIS for that. Thanks for the tip though, the sentiment’s touching- but you know you don’t have to follow the whole ‘In sickness and in health’ thing anymore, don’t you?”

You grit your teeth together, a small tug building in your stomach as you saw him walk away, whistling a small tune to himself as he disappeared into the night.

You pondered for a second, the cogs within your head turning rapidly within the machinery of your mind. The Master didn’t do anything for no reason, especially since he’d taken to staying on earth, which you still didn’t understand why. No, there had to be another reason why he’d decided to step out into the night. The first full snow, beyond the light dustings of powder that had covered certain parts of the city. This was a full blown, stereotypical, Victorian Christmas. And something about it was troubling the Master. You had to find out why.

With a forceful tug, your apron slipped down the front of your dress, soon trampled into the melting mush of snow at the edge of the courtyard. You made haste in traversing the alleyway and sprinting out into the open, the roads covered in the sludge left by the traffic of carriage wheels and horse hooves. A dark carriage was rolling down the main street, its driver hooded and cloaked, the windows hidden by the roller curtain, the damask a deep shade of maroon. Nobody else in London town would be so macabre without being in mourning- that had to be the Masters carriage. 

Breaking into a further sprint, you dodged past couples on clandestine strolls, drunkards stumbling through the street, and established gentlemen who could risk a nightly stroll without the risk of murder or societal impropriety. No doubt your mad dash would become gossip, the girl with the red dress chasing after a vehicle and doing something rather reprehensible- but you couldn’t care less. 

The carriage turned, its momentum slowing to allow the weight, and you took that moment to leap. Your boot hooked onto the metal latch of the back of the carriage, the ornate metalwork acting as handlebars as you yanked yourself upwards. There you lay on the roof, on your belly, fingers grappling to reach the small latch that opened the roof compartment. You lay for a while, listening in to the conversation inside. From the metal scratching you could tell he was communicating with somebody from a distance away, most likely a hypnotised nobody to do his dirty work. They were much easier to come by these days.

“The snow’s evolving fast, that snowman built itself in a single second. They’re also spreading closer to the river. I want more eyes out there. Especially around Blanc street.”

Blanc street? You raised an eyebrow. That was the street the Rose and Crown was on.

“Yes Master. Did you find what you were looking for?”

Ah, so this drone wasn’t exactly mindless. Maybe the Master had gotten lonely. Good. 

Inside the cabin, the Master paused.

“Yes,” he said after a while. “I did. She’s still alive. Still the same as ever. Still…”

There was a long silence. The goon on the other side coughed quietly.

“Still what, Master?”

The timelord course corrected, huffing dramatically. He always did that when he didn’t want to admit the truth.

“Still so nosy.” He replied. “She was all over that snowman, she could sense something was off about it too. Presumptuous, if you ask me. Personally I think she’s just looking for trouble. Sometimes I question why I even married her.”

That was it. With a powerful push, you shoved the pin from the top of the latch, the square gap opening wide as the lid swung downwards on its hinges. You followed suit, rocking forwards and allowing your head to fall through the gap, your upside down face meeting with the Master's shocked expression. You furrowed your brow, tone exasperated and curt.

“Because I said yes!” You snapped, and the Master's face immediately soured.

Slamming his knuckles against the front of the carriage, he scrunched his nose in annoyance.

“Pull over! Right, get in here-” He barked at the driver, a quiet ‘yes, Master’ echoing through the roof. The Master's hands suddenly reached forward, latching hold of your shoulders.

“Oi!” You shouted in reply, the momentum sending you tumbling down into the carriage. You felt your tailbone collide with the bottom of the carriage, your legs flying to land on the opposing bench, your dress ruffles falling to expose your lower thighs, your head ending up sat in the Masters lap. You both paused, staring at each other, the tangible pull of memory freezing you both in place. Any other time, any other you, his hands would begin to cart through your hair. But now was not one of those times. You shuffled awkwardly out of his lap, trying to manoeuvre yourself away from his clutches, and also trying to salvage any dignity you could muster. You brushed down your dress, sitting uncomfortably across from the Master and folding your arms indignantly. The time lord frowned, tapping his fingers upon his knees.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The Master snapped.

“What on earth possessed you to jump on the top of my carriage?”

“Because I missed you SO much.” You mocked, smiling sarcastically.

“And because you stormed off without telling me what you know about the snow.”

“Oh, really-” The Master scoffed, rubbing his hands over his face. The carriage pulled over into a small precinct, no unlike the courtyard flanking the Rose and Crown. The horses rode to a stop, kicking at the snow with a snuffle, fresh snowflakes landing upon their noses. The driver sat, almost frozen, small layers of snow building upon his shoulders before melting from his body heat.

“I knew the only reason you came snooping around the pub was because you were curious about something.” You said, pointing towards the ceiling, and the small metallic speaker that poked through the top of the cab. “And your little chat with whoever, confirmed that.”

Leaning forward, you mimicked the Master's pose.

“Something is going on with the snow, and you think it's alien. And, considering you’re keeping a low profile instead of trying to form a rocky alliance with the culprit I KNOW you already have in mind-”

The Master scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“You think it’s dangerous. And not in a good way.”

The Master threw his hands up in the air, reaching towards the cabin door with a scowl.

“I’m not doing this. I’m not getting into this with you-”

Storming out of the cabin and into the cold, the Master's feet split the fresh layer of snow. He charged forwards, standing in the middle of the empty street and letting out a low groan, his hands falling to his hips.

“Hey-” You called after him, almost jumping out of the carriage.

“I have a right to know-”

“No, you don’t!”

The Master spun around, practically launching himself across the snow in your direction, his finger pointed towards your chest.

“I don’t owe you anything! You don’t get anything from me anymore! You gave up the right to know anything the moment you left the TARDIS-”

“Because you wouldn’t tell me anything in the first place!”

You replied, the heat of anger warming your cheeks.

“You, Master, it was you that shut me out first. You dropped the ball, with your whole ‘time lord superiority’ and your secrets. Do you think it was an easy decision for me?”

“Well, it certainly seemed like it!” He argued back, teeth bared like an animal.

“And, Y/N, if I recall, I wasn’t the one that said I didn’t want to be married anymore-”

“I wasn’t the one that made it impossible to be married!”

The pair of you stood eye to eye, faces almost touching, shoulders shaking with rage. This palpable divide, the pain of yearning, it felt like a pair of handcuffs around your necks- keeping you tethered together through an inescapable pain. The Master yanked away his stare first, slamming the door of the cab shut before returning to your confrontational exterior.

“Right. Here’s what's going to happen. I’m going to take away the last hour of your memory-”

“You what-”

“Just shut up and listen!” He ordered. “I’m going to take it away. You, me, the snow, it’s all going to go away. You’re going to go back to your job, and everything that's happened between us tonight will feel like just a dream. That way you don’t have to worry about anything. And you’ll stay out of all of this.”

You instinctively pulled away from the timelord, looking him up and down with disbelief. He had no reason to do that, no reason to take it all away from you. But why only an hour? This was a man capable of using hypnosis to reset a person's brain completely, his ability so advanced he could practically erase them from the minds of everybody they’d ever known. He’d built an entire satellite system designed to paint himself as an angel in every single human's mind- so why would he be so merciful?

“Then you can tell me now, can’t you?”

The Master raised his eyebrow in confusion.

“What?”

“You can tell me everything you know now, and I'll forget it all. You always worked better after you rambled your whole plan. That way we’re both happy.”

You looked at him hopefully, your curiosity desperate to know what he knew. The Master thought for a moment, before letting his whole body sink into a defeated sigh.

“Is that the only thing keeping you from running?”

“Why would I run away?”

“I just told you I'm going to wipe your memory.”

“And I've just discovered evil snow exists. If you’re desperate for a chase, I'll run after you tell me. I bet I'll get at least five streets down before I get a stitch and you catch me. Never any good at sprinting and all.”

For the first time that night, the Master truly smiled. A real smile, not one of sarcastic superiority.

“Fine.” He relented, bending down to inspect the snow between his fingers once more.

“From what I can gather, the snow emits a low level telepathic field, basically a fishing net for thought-”

A sudden chill crossed over the back of your neck, the same distant whooshing of winter air emerging from the end of the back alley. You stepped away from the Master to inspect the cobbled alleyway, your eyes widening at the sight of the same snowman looming ominously at the end of the street.

“The snowman…” You said to yourself, watching the mouth of the creature begin to widen, more and more teeth emerging in the gap.

“-catching the thoughts and reflecting it back at the people stuck inside. But this stuff is acting strangely, carrying over a previous shape-”

“Master!” You yelled, grabbing hold of his shoulder and yanking him to your side, pointing towards the snowman.

“The snowman!”

The Master rubbed his hands together at the sight, instantly stepping forwards to inspect the new arrival. Your hand on his arm kept him from getting closer, his curiosity reaching its absolute peak.

“Ah! How grand.” He called excitedly, looking the grinning snowman up and down.

“Were you thinking about the snowman?”

“Yes!” You replied hastily. A second snowman suddenly shot up from the ground, the loud whoosh sending the pair of you stepping backwards in shock.

“Then I suggest you stop!” The Master finished, before grabbing hold of your arm and yanking you away.

 The pair of you turned to run, hoping to make a grand escape in the Masters carriage, when a further two snowmen appeared at the other end of the alleyway. You were boxed in, more and more snow creatures shooting like rockets out of the earth, their grins opening wide as a blizzard of snow emerged from their mouths. The snow was blinding, knocking the pair of you back into the middle of the alleyway, your arms flying upwards to shield your faces from the onslaught.

“Y/N, stop thinking about the snowmen!”

“I can’t!” You cried.

 The thought was stuck at the forefront of your brain, their deep black eyes and piercing grins plastered across the inside of your mind's eye. At this, the snowmen seemed to grow taller, their rumbling growls increasing the ferocity of the snow. The Master grabbed hold of your arms, pulling you down to the floor of the alleyway, your fingers grasping his jacket material as his hands reached to grasp hold of your face.

“Y/N, the snowmen are feeding off your thoughts, you’re trapped in their telepathic field, their fishing net-”

“I don’t understand!” You shouted, something primal in your gut screaming for help. You’d faced down daleks and cybermen and not even blinked, but now you were admitting your fear at the hands of demonic snowmen. The Master leaned in closer, his forehead almost meeting your own.

“The more you think of them, the more they appear, but you can change them-”

“How?!”

“Think of them melting. C’mon, Love, picture them melted!”

You scrunched your eyes shut, and began to visualise. You forced every part of your brain into action, fighting hard to imagine the snowmen around you as nothing more than sad little puddles. You pictures the scene in your mind- the Master and you crouched in the middle of the alley, the snowmen around you disappearing into a mound of sludge and cold water. The Master closed his eyes too, picturing a similar thought, and the frozen growls around you were squozen into a pathetic roar. You gasped as a powerful burst of rain crashed onto you from both sides, your hair and clothes now sopping wet as the snowmen disintegrated into nothingness, melting into the cobbles. The Master laughed, his hands automatically pulling you towards his chest, his fingers stroking down the back of your hair as you launched yourself into his arms.

“Well done, good girl, well done.” He said comfortingly into your hair, your nose breathing the scent of his aftershave in deep. It took a few seconds for him to realise what he was doing, the Master pushing your shoulders away to arms length, his face looking as if he was performing a million mental calculations at once. 

“Ehem,” he attempted, nodding curtly. “Good job. You got rid of the problem you created.”

“Is that going to happen again?” You asked as he moved to stand, brushing off his knees and taking the top hat from his head, pulling a face at the wet patch on its side.

“Maybe, the snow is spreading.” The Master explained, placing it back on his head.

“If it does, now you know what to do about it.”

You leant against the brick wall, shivering from the bite of cold that clung to the cold water, sending goosebumps across your skin. Crossing your arms over your chest, you looked up at the Master with a disappointed frown.

“Unless I forget.” You said, the Master's face falling in reply.

Soon he’d dragged you to your feet and bustled you into the carriage, pushing you to sit on the leather seat, his hands braced on each side of the door.

“Go home, get warm, go to bed. Don’t go investigating the snow, stay out of trouble.”

He said, or more likely commanded. You nodded at his words, knowing full well you weren't going to follow them.

“Thank you.” You said softly. “For saving me… and for not scrubbing my brain.”

The Master smiled slightly, glancing down at the floor.

“Don’t get used to it. I think it's better for both our sanities if we stay out of each others lives, all things considered. If I can't wipe your mind, try your best to do it yourself.”

Before he managed to pull away, you placed your own hand on the frame of the door.

“What are you going to do? Shouldn’t people be warned about the snow?” You asked. The Master smirked, the villainous bravado returning to his face once again.

“You and I both know that's not how I work. I suggest buying a raincoat”

“How am I supposed to do that on the barmaids wage you so detest?”

The Master scrunched his nose challengingly, before gesturing to the falling snow.

“Put it on your Christmas list.”

The door slammed with a metallic crunch, the Master's hand pressing itself against the glass. You looked closely at his hand as he muttered something to the driver about taking you home, your eyes falling upon his ring finger, pressed against the surface. You felt your heart lurch at the indentation on his finger, the small area of skin that used to hold his wedding band now exposed to the cold air. With two knocks to the side of the carriage the horses began to move, the Master walking away from the cabin and heading down the same alleyway the snowmen had appeared on, merging with the shadows as easily as the snow merged with the earth.

No. You couldn't let him escape so easily. Not after all that. You leant against the far wall of the carriage, giving the door a harsh push. The door swung open on its hinges, a small victory, and with a graceful leap you landed in a pile of wet sludge. Ignoring the wet that had started to soak into your boots, you made haste in catching up with the Master. His purposeful strides had struck deep into previously undisturbed snow, the journey winding through side streets and alleyways as you followed him towards the park. Hiding behind a tree, you watched the Master shove his hands into his pockets and casually stroll through the park gate. He was whistling to himself, pursing his lips and whistling out the chorus of Last Christmas. The Master had always seemingly been a fan of the 80’s, you thought. Not that anybody in the 19th century, beyond yourself of course, would be able to share in his enthusiasm. 

Dashing over to another tree, you watched him turn his head from side to side, inspecting his surroundings for any onlookers. Once he’d decided the coast was clear, you watched in surprise as he leapt into the air, his hands clasping onto something metallic, sending a small clang into the wind. With a seasoned pull he yanked downwards, his feet dangling above the snow as he leant upon what seemed to be the bottom rung of a ladder. You blinked in surprise, watching the feet of the ladder sink into the snow. The Timelord took one last look over each shoulder, and after he was satisfied, the Masters shoes began to easily climb their way up. It took only a few steps before the Master had somehow disappeared from view, and with the sound of two ringing taps, the ladder began to ascend once more into invisibility, still to the unbroken tune of Last Christmas.

 Without hesitation you raced towards the ascending ladder. You had to grasp hold of it now that he’d engaged with it. Surely he’d booby trapped it, attached some sort of safety mechanism. No doubt if some stranger had decided to climb up, they’d receive an electric shock, or searing burns across their palms, or possibly something much more macabre. You had no clue what the Master's mind had been able to create in his spiteful isolation. A part of you, as crazy as it was, deeply yearned to find out. You took a running leap towards the continuously rising ladder, hand outstretched. If you could just grasp hold of the bottom rung, you could yank down the ladder and follow him. 

It was getting closer and closer, you were within a jump's reach. With gusto you leapt straight into the air, practically an olympian- and proceeded to skim the bottom rung with your fingertips, before crashing back to the ground with an embarrassing puff of snow.

 You groaned, the impact cold against your back, your pride bruised as much as your behind was. From here you could see into the sky, the clouds sprinkling a dusting of snow into the atmosphere, the moon shining through the naked branches of dormant trees. Despite being right under where it had descended, there was no ladder above you. You cocked your head to the side, narrowing your eyes. The Master had seemingly ascended and disappeared from any sort of view. You couldn’t allow yourself to be defeated so easily, not after he’d gone to all that unneeded effort to save you earlier. The Master had the power to travel anywhere he wanted, anywhere he could possibly desire- yet he’d decided to stay in the same city he’d abandoned you in. If you couldn’t pick his brain and figure out why, you at least deserved to know where he’d set up shop.

Picking yourself up from the ground, you dusted off your skirt, which had only just begun to dry from the onslaught of melting snowmen. You focused your approach, stepping back from the spot and turning over your shoulder, just as the Master had. You bent your knees, preparing a run up, breathing the icy air into your lungs. You pushed off, kicking up a cloud of snow behind you, and swiftly leapt into the skies. 

Clang. Your fingers connected with a bar of cold metal, your hands wrapping tightly around the bottom of the ladder. No shock, no poison, no searing burns. The Master hadn’t trapped the ladder at all. You smiled, victorious at last. 

You glanced up towards the sky, your eyes widening as you saw the rest of the ladder appear against the darkness, your core sufficiently engaging as you yanked the ladder back down towards the earth. You climbed up each rung as fast as you could, eyes unbroken from the heavens, and as you ascended the ladder you smiled in disbelief. Below you, Londoners were once again roaming the streets. You called out to them, waving down at the man and woman who were walking their dog down the street. The dog began to yap, tugging on its lead, yet the owners paid no mind. Beside you, a stray cat lounged and mewed within the spindling branches of the tree, unbothered by your rapid ascent. 

“Oh, hello lovely.” You mused, fingers softly scratching between the cats ears, the small creature mewing in delight before slinking further up the branch. 

You followed its trail as it nimbly manoeuvred the thinning branches, your eyes falling upon the sudden appearance of a looming staircase, spiralling up high into the layer of clouds above, connected to the metal platform beneath your feet. Your hand connected with the hand rail, curved and coiled in intricate fashion, and your foot moved to step upon the first stair. The cat yowled, your attention once more pulled back to the ladder. It was still dangling downwards, feet piercing the snow. You put your hand on your hip, squinting your eyes as you questioned why it had not shot up like it had for the Master. He’d pulled down the ladder, climbed up, then you heard- oh! You ran towards the ladder and tapped it twice with your foot, watching as it disturbed the blanket of snow and began to rise back to where it belonged.

“Thanks.” You said to the cat, that licked its paw in reply. You never forgot to speak to the stray cats you encountered, the stories of the Cheetah Planet instilling a respect inside you for any possible kittlings you could encounter.

 Once more, you crossed invisibly towards the grand staircase, clapping hold of the bannister and placing your foot upon the bottom step. The whole structure felt like it was brimming with energy, the towering spiral almost buzzing under your feet as you carefully made your way into the skies. No matter how many steps you ascended, the usual stitch or lack of breath never reached your body. You didn’t even struggle with the change in atmosphere, it was as if you were clambering up in your own pocket of oxygen. 

The stairs took little effort, and soon you found yourself heading straight through the cloud layer. The air was cool, the soft water vapour tickling your nose as the end of the bannister came into sight. You paused, feet lodged upon the last step, and you eyed the floor curiously. Or, what you presumed to be the floor. Instead of a platform, you saw the vapour continued to sprawl across the ground, a blanket of cloud waiting at your feet. Perhaps this was where the Master would play his last trick, letting you believe you’d made it to the top, and send you plummeting back down to the earth. The most effective way to deal with intruders. And door to door salesmen.

Dubiously, you placed the toe of your boot onto the layer of cloud. Instinctively, you pulled back when your foot connected with something hard. Taking a breath, you stepped once more, this time allowing your whole foot to connect with the somehow solid cloud. First one foot, then another, and when you were finally satisfied, you allowed your hand to let go of the curved end of the handrail.

 Suddenly, all around you, the world began to glimmer. It was like a switch had been flipped, one by one the black night began to twinkle with stars, the horizon shimming with shapes and constellations, unblemished by any sort of light pollution. A small laugh escaped your throat as you stepped further onto the cloud, your arms reaching out as you span in a circle. You felt like a princess, albeit in your pauper gown, spinning around atop of a cloud. Like something out of a fairy tale.

 It was mid spin that you suddenly noticed the looming structure, and you stopped dead in your tracks. Your stomach began to flip and knot, your hands falling to your sides as you stared at the building with a yearning ache in your chest. There it was, standing proudly out of place atop of the cloud, atop of Victorian London. That Outback shack, that hut with its overhanging porch and boarded up walls, The Master's TARDIS. It hummed and shimmered in the low light, staring back at you with all its disguised majesty.

 Hesitantly, you stepped closer, each step bridging you closer to the front door. Part of you wondered if he’d be able to see you through the windows- maybe he’d turned them function, rather than decorational. Perhaps you’d see him, sitting inside by the console like a Scrooge, nursing a cup of tea and sitting with a book. Maybe he was angrily messing with the console, or the TCE, or any other piece of tech he could rip apart and put back together again. Part of you hoped he had a giant investigation board, completed with red string and shoddy camera pictures of blurry snowmen. While another part of you hoped he’d popped out to the shop via the back door. But you knew there was no back door to the TARDIS. That was what made your proximity feel so darn painful.

 Soon you found yourself stood at the front door, staring down at the wood and fighting the anxiety fuelled breaths your body was yearning you take. All it would take was one knock. Maybe two, possibly three, never four. Just some sort of sign. Some sort of attempt to get his attention. 

You shuffled your feet awkwardly, considering all the dreadful possibilities. He could make good of his promise to wipe your mind, maybe this time for good. He could stick an arm out and shrink you, like he’d done once with a poor bunch of carol singers. Hell, he could even kick you off the cloud himself for bothering him. Or… he could invite you in. Maybe make you a cup of tea, show you his string board of the investigation, let you warm up by the fire. Maybe he’d let you back in again. Maybe you’d never have to leave again. It took every ounce of will in your body to raise your hand, to simply press it against the door of that beloved Time and Space machine. Just to feel the familiar, comforting hum of its walls. 

You let your hand rest against the wood, working up the courage to make that fateful knock- but the TARDIS herself had seemingly decided you were taking far too long. At the touch of your hand, the TARDIS began to buzz and whirr with excitement, like a dog barking the moment it heard the postman approach the drive. 

“Shit!” You whispered to yourself, yanking your hand away and turning on your heels.

 You jumped down off the porch and ran across the cloud as fast as you could, charging towards the bannister and fleeing towards the spiral staircase once again. You felt your shawl fall from your shoulders, but the anxiety in your chest was too pervasive to care. You plunged through the cloud layer, racing down the staircase as fast as your boots would allow. The TARDIS door swung open behind you, and the Master stepped out onto the porch, his jacket and hat abandoned and glasses once more perched upon the end of his nose. 

“Who’s there?” He called into the night, narrowing his eyes and scoping out the surroundings, TCE gripped in his grasp.

“Show yourself.” He called louder this time. No reply came from the cloud. 

The Master sighed, staring over at the horizon, when a shock of red against the perfect white ground caught his attention. He stepped closer to the start of the staircase, crouching down to the ground and grasping at the red cloth. The Master peered at the fabric, humming in thought, when the memory suddenly appeared at the forefront of his mind. You had been wearing the exact same shawl when he’d seen you earlier. Poking his head through the cloud, the Master stared at the small figure in a red dress sprinting through the park gates. A smile had unknowingly found its way to the Master's mouth, the time lord pushing himself up from the ground. He huffed out of his nose, before turning back and retreating back through the TARDIS doors, the red shawl still clutched tightly between his fingers.

The next morning the sun dared to gleam through the windows of the Rose and Crown guest room, the rays of sun dancing across your face and pulling you from slumber. Your vision settled on the brown leather bag upon the chair at the end of your bed, your whole body filled with a new sense of purpose. You clambered out of bed, eagerly throwing on your dress from the night before, your brows furrowing as you searched your small wardrobe for the red shawl you were sure you’d thrown off the night earlier. You sighed, opting for a brown woollen one instead, shoving the last of your things into the brown bag and practically skipping down the stairs.

“What’s all this about?” The landlord called, wiping down the surface of the bar and watching you, puzzled. 

“It’s Christmas Eve,” you replied. “ I'm off. Elsie gets back this afternoon, I’m sure you’ll survive.”

Before the landlord could protest, or leer, or do anything at all, you blew a kiss and headed out the front door to the waiting cab. You slipped a small bag of coins to the cab driver, who took hold of your bag and opened the door to the cabin. You hiked up your dress, your eyes falling to the bare cobble street. Just the night before, the streets had been bathed in a blanket of snow. Now… nothing. It was as if the city itself was following the Masters instructions, trying to make you forget of the night's events. But you were determined otherwise.

“Funny,” you muttered to yourself as you stepped into the cabin, taking your bag back and pulling down the roller blinds.

“Must have all thawed in the night.”

Later that afternoon, the Master was once more disturbed. This time not by the TARDIS herself, but by the small sound of scratching against the wooden door. The Master growled to himself, placing the book that had been open on his lap firmly on the table beside his chair. He pulled the glasses from the end of his nose, abandoning them atop of the book, and headed towards the front door of the TARDIS with annoyance. How hard was it to get through one stupid book without any intrusion? The Master sighed as he yanked open the front door, staring down at the porch to see a cat staring back up at him. 

“What do you want now?”

The Master grumbled, the kittlings eyes glowing a golden yellow as it slinked into the TARDIS between his feet. The Master lent against the doorframe, the small black cat purring as it trotted over the carpet towards the Masters living quarters.

“You know, you’re supposed to be out hunting. You can’t keep coming here for your food. It’s Victorian London, Shadow. Mice are everywhere. ”

The cat gave a muffled purr of protest. The Master sighed.

“I suppose it is payment, you’re right. Fine,” He ran his hand through his hair. 

“Don’t make yourself too comfy.”

Trotting her way across the faded floral rug, the kittling leapt up onto the Masters chair, turning in a circle before sitting down like a mimicry of the Sphinx. The Master headed towards the small kitchenette, setting the kettle to boil once more and pulling a mug from the cupboard. It had chipped upon the golden rim, the comical slogan ‘I went to the Catrigan Nova and all I got was this stupid mug’ faded from several turns in the dishwasher. His hand paused as he looked at the mug right beside it. A black and white UNIT office mug, likely slipped into a bag on a previous arrest. That was your mug. It hadn’t been used in some time.

“Although, after that little stunt you pulled last night, I should be planning on skinning you. Why did you let her up here?”

The kittling gave what could be a shrug, licking at her paws idly. The Master pulled a bag of treats out of the lower cabinet, the kettle whistling as it finished its boil.

“And don’t play coy, I found her shawl at the top of the steps. I know you let her up the staircase. What’s the point of having a guard cat that doesn’t guard?”

The Master carried both his fresh tea and the bag of treats towards the living area, rolling his eyes at the display.

“Oi, no, get lost. That's my chair.”

His rantings were cut short by the sight of the envelope tied to the kittlings back with a ribbon. A perfect, white, crisp envelope, with the Masters name scrawled across in deep black cursive ink. 

“What’s that?” He asked. The kittling purred, stretching once more upon the soft armchair as the Master untied the ribbon around the envelope, letting the square of white paper fall from its back.

“When did she give you this?”

Yet another purr. The Master swallowed. 

“Thanks. Here, take some of these and get lost.” 

The kittling happily snatched the entire bag of treats from the Master's grasp, the Time lord shouting in protest as the small cat hopped down from the chair and scarpered its way back out of the door. The TARDIS shut the door behind the small cat, and the Master placed his tea on the side, trading the mug for his glasses. He placed them back on the end of his nose before ripping open the envelope and unfolding the letter within.

“Master,

I hope you’re not surprised by me completely ignoring what you told me to do. I promise I did consider leaving things be. Consider being the word of the day. But the trouble with the snow has reached a point where I can’t risk it getting any worse. Francesca Latimer has been having bad dreams. Specifically about her old governess. She drowned in the pond in front of the house nearly a year ago, only to be found days later after the ice thawed. While I'm sure this is gossip you probably heard but didn’t care about- Frannie’s been dreaming about her. She dreams she’ll appear on Christmas eve to punish her, dragging herself out of the pond. I wanted to chalk this up to childhood theatrics, but I think she’s right. The pond is still frozen, even after last night's thaw. And I felt something. I swear, when I touched that pond, something felt strange. It’s the same feeling I had when we saw that snowman outside the pub last night. Like you said- the snow can feed off of thoughts. The more you think, the more it appears. I can’t explain it, but my gut knows something isn’t right. Please, Master. I know we aren't on the best of terms, but this is important to me. Something is going to happen tonight. And I need your help. 

I hope this letter gets to you. Kittling mail is never fully reliable. Please come to the Latimer’s house as fast as you can. After this, I promise you’ll never have to deal with me again.

Y/N 

(Ps, when you get here, ask for the Governess Miss Montague. I’ll explain later.)”

The Master looked up from the letter, staring over at the corner of the room. Your shawl was thrown over your untouched chair, the pillow still plumped just how you liked it, your unfinished pile of books still sat upon the side table. The Master walked over to the chair, delicately placing the letter upon the stack of books, brushing the thin layer of dust from the top of the chair with his finger.

“Well, since you asked so nicely.” He murmured, glancing over his shoulder at the large investigation board he’d assembled on the wall, all about the snow. He walked back over to his chair, picking up the abandoned book and looking down at the cover. He looked back to the board, then back down to the book. At that moment, an idea built in his head.

“Always dressing for the occasion, aren't I?” He said, a smile on his face as he headed towards the TARDIS wardrobe, his unfinished copy of the Hound of the Baskervilles thrown idly back onto the chair.

“Come now, you two!” You called, clapping your hands as the Latimer children raced past each other towards the bathroom.

“I want shiny bright teeth and squeaky clean faces. And what do we never forget to clean?”

“Behind our ears!” They called in reply, giggling as they fought over the space in the sink.

“Indeed, and do we remember why?”

“Because secrets get hidden behind there.” Digby replied, rolling his eyes. 

“But that’s not true, is it Miss Montague?”

You gasped dramatically at the young boy, folding your arms.

“It very much is, Digby. Secrets have a nasty habit of catching themselves on all the dirt behind your ears. I clean behind mine morning and night. That's why I know you missed me twice every Saturday since I’ve been gone.”

Frannie giggled at her brother's blush, your smile stately yet smug as you clapped your hands once more.

“Two minutes precisely while brushing those teeth, you two. Then off we pop to bed.”

You headed out of the bathroom, expertly scooping up an abandoned teddy bear, likely Frannies, and placing him upon the lid of the toy chest at the end of her bed. You reached for the windows, fluffing the drapes and getting ready to close them for the night. You glanced at the clock, pressing your lips together in disappointment. It was almost nine. The Master had yet to show up. You supposed you shouldn’t have hoped he would. After all, you weren’t exactly together anymore. But after the events of last night, you weren't as confident in your decision as you were when you initially made it. 

Returning to the drapes, you stared out of the window and gasped. The Master was there, down in the courtyard, crouched over the pond and inspecting it curiously. He was wearing his top hat once again- you hated to admit just how much you liked that look on him. Tapping against the glass, the Master glanced up from the pond at the sound, the TCE in hand. You could see his furrowed brow ease into a much gentler expression through the spotlight of the window lamp, the timelord standing up fully and stepping onto the lip of the pond. You waved gently, your heart racing. Miraculously, the Master waved back, the same level of awkwardness in his fingertips as your own. 

You gestured with your head towards the house, and when his furrowed brow returned, you signalled for him to come in with your hands. You nibbled on your bottom lip nervously as he turned around, likely muttering an excuse to himself that he could use to leave. You expected a cross, or a line across the throat, or a simple shake of the head. Any reason for him to not come in and help, simply satiating his own morbid curiosity. But when he turned around and gestured five with his hand, you felt your stomach flip and spin with joy. You smiled, closing the curtains and turning back to the children as they clambered into bed, dusting down your dress as you sat down.

“Am I going to have the nightmare again tonight?” Frannie asked softly. You smiled, shaking your head as you grasped hold of her rescued teddy bear, placing it in her lap.

“Absolutely not. Because I’m going to tell you a story.”

“Is this another ‘absolutely true’ story?” Digby questioned, grinning cheekily.

“Like the fact you travelled through time?”

“Of course,” You replied. “Accounting for my excellent time keeping and knowledge of the world.”

“And that you’ve been to space?” Frannie continued.

“Because I’d already been everywhere on earth.” You grinned, tucking the children into their beds.

“No, this story is about a man called the Master. He lives on a cloud, in the sky, and he’s my very special friend.”

“What’s he the Master of?” Digby asked. You chuckled to yourself.

“If you ask him, he’s the Master of everything. And he has this special power where if you look into his eyes, he can make you do whatever he says. He could make you tidy your room, or do your homework-”

“Or cluck like a chicken?” Frannie smiled. “I’ve seen somebody do that before. He was a hypnotist on stage.”

“Exactly.” You continued. “But he made a promise to me, long ago, that if I needed any help from monsters, he would come.”

“But monsters aren’t real.” Digby argued. You raised an eyebrow.

“What did I say about my stories, Digby? They are all very, very true.”

“But what about my nightmares?” Frannie asked sadly. You took her hand and nodded.

“Like I said, he made me a promise. And I think a little girl having nightmares on Christmas eve is very monstrous indeed. So, I asked him to help.”

Your eye was suddenly caught by the bellowing of the candle flame, the floorboards in the hallway squeaking as if under the strain of footsteps.

“In fact I think he’s right here. Come meet my young friends, Master!” You called, the door to the bedroom creaking open.

You waited with a hopeful smile, your heart fluttering, when all of a sudden a shrieking voice came into the room.

“THE CHILDREN HAVE BEEN VERY NAUGHTY!”

The Ice Governess screamed, her face cracking, teeth of ice bared. 

“Oh, shit!” You screamed, the children squealing in fear as you instinctively pulled them behind you, spreading your arms wide.

“Get back, get away from her!” You yelled, Frannie desperately shoving her face into your arm.

“NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY CHILDREN!”

She shrieked, Digby clinging onto your dress for dear life.

“What are we going to do?!” He cried in fear. You turned your eye towards the door, the Ice Governess creeping closer and closer.

“RUN! NOW!” you ordered, the children dropping their teddy bears in fear as you pulled them across the landing and into the children's play room, the floor full of toys and tables full of drawings. You locked the door behind you, rushing over to Frannie’s side and grasping her face in your hands.

“Frannie, listen to me, you have to picture her melting!”

“What?”

“In your head! Picture her melting into water, think it in your head!”

“Miss Montague!” Digby cried, just as the Governess slammed through the locked door and came slinking into the room.

“NAUGHTY CHILDREN MUST BE PUNISHED!” she hissed, swiping at the children with her claws as you pushed them further behind your back.

“What about your friend! The hypnotist man!”

Digby asked, clutching your arm in terror as you backed away from the Ice woman.

“I don’t know!”

“The man on the cloud! Your special friend!”

“Where’s the Master?!” Frannie joined in, shrinking behind your back and sobbing.

All of a sudden, thunderous footsteps came up the stairs, the blur of a figure in the doorway clouded by the Ice Governesses towering stature. There came a familiar, violent ZAP sound, and before your eyes the now cracking Ice Governess gave an agonised roar before exploding into a mass of powdered ice. You shielded your face as best you could, the children cowering in shock. Blinking away the shattered ice, you turned your head to stare in awe. 

Standing in the doorway in all his glory was the Master, TCE raised with pride in his hand, a familiar smug smile on his face.

Even though he was now top hatless- it was very good to see him.

“Miss me?” He asked charmingly, and you rolled your eyes.

“Always just in the nick of time, never before.” You teased, brushing the shards of ice from your dress.

“Where’s the fun in that? And I did say five minutes, technically I'm early.”

“Are you Miss Montague's special friend?” Digby asked hesitantly. 

“Are you the Master?”

“Special friend?” The Master asked, wiggling his eyebrows. Your face flushed a deep red.

“Oh, Miss Montague, what have you been telling these dear children?”

“Are you really able to look into people's eyes and tell them what to do?” Digby continued, staring at the TCE in the Master's hands. The Master was truly smirking now, turning to look in Digby's eyes. 

“Oh yes, I could. I could make you do anything I’d like if you look too close.”

Digby gasped and turned away, all while Frannie stepped closer to the Master.

“Is she really gone?” She asked timidly. “Where is she? Is she going to come back?”

The Master shrugged, reading the TCE as it whirred quietly. You peered over her shoulder, trying to see the readings yourself.

“Not likely, she’s currently draining through your carpet. I’d get it checked for mould after.”

“Why did she explode?” You asked, your hand on Frannie’s shoulder.

“New setting I need to worry about? Tissue expansion?”

The Master smirked, standing to meet your gaze.

“It just doesn’t do water. I still can’t figure out why. That’s a good idea, though, but I really wouldn’t Google it. Oh, and you’re welcome, by the way.”

You shuffled awkwardly, nodding at the Master's words.

“I wanted to get all my questions out before I thanked you. But I am really grateful, y’know. Even though I did know you’d help.”

Suddenly, the Master's face fell. He leant in closer, glaring at you with a forced fury.

“No, you didn’t. In case you’re forgetting, love, I'm not the Doctor. I don’t go around helping children and saving Christmas and granting bloody wishes. That’s not what I do. And, need I remind you, I was already investigating the snow. So you just got lucky that I happened to be here, TCE at the ready-”

The Master glanced downwards, ready to slide the device into his pocket, when he suddenly caught a shimmer of gold. Upon his ring finger once more sat his wedding band, just where it used to be. 

He twisted the ring gently, the rage instantly melting from his face.

“Oh…” He whispered to himself. 

You followed his eyes, your attention pulled from the children who’d begun to stare out of the window, the edges of the glass beginning to seal with frost. Outside, a dusting of snow began to fall, the green grass disappearing under a blanket of white. They gasped as tall snowmen began to slowly grow out of the freshly fallen snow, all the while you’d stepped even closer to the Master.

“Is everything ok?” You asked quietly, looking down at his ring. You took a deep breath, swallowing the lump in your throat.

“Oh…” You also said. The Master nodded strangely, tilting his head.

“I um, didn’t know I’d put it on.” He said, looking up and truly meeting your eyes for the first time that evening, all bravado set aside.

“Oh… ok…” You replied.

“I think my mind just went… y’know.”

“Yeah.”

“Force of habit.”

“Absolutely.”

“Miss Montague! Master!”

The children cried in unison, pulling themselves from the window and tugging at both of your arms.

“She’s coming back!” Digby yelled.

“She’s going to punish me!” Frannie sobbed.

“Master, what do we do?!” You asked, all the while the Master was frantically trying to mess around with the settings on the TCE. Slowly, the mass beneath the carpet began to grow larger, the painful crunch of ice echoing through the dark and chilly room, the figure shifting and twitching as the Ice Governess began to build herself back up.

“Well, she’s learned to resist melting, so that’s interesting.”

“How’s she done that?!”

“It’s not really a she, more of a thing, really.” The Master corrected, clapping a hand on the shoulder of each child.

“She’s not going to punish you, Frannie, that’s ridiculous. She’s not a Governess, she’s a monster. So really, she’s going to eat you.”

You gaped at the creature, the governess shrugging off the remains of the carpet and swiping violently towards your face.

“Run!” You yelled, grasping the hands of Frannie and Digby’s hands and pulling them down the stairs. The Master followed, slamming the playroom door behind him and heading behind you down the stairs. On the bottom floor of the house, the maid was running in a frenzy, screaming about snowmen in the garden and a strange man at the door. Captain Latimer had stormed out of his study, eyebrows furrowed and furious as he waited at the bottom of the stairs.

“Miss Montague, what on earth do you think you’re doing? Would you care to explain why the children are out of bed at such an hour- who the devil are you?!”

You turned around to see the Master stomping down the steps, sliding past you and bracing hold of the bannister. He stared deep into Captain Latimer's eyes, his gaze piercing deep into the man's mind, his voice loud and clear. Captain Later froze in place, transfixed at the Masters gaze. He couldn't pull away even if he wanted to.

“I am the Master, and you will obey me. Take your screaming maid and your children into the parlour, lock the doors and keep an eye on the snowmen outside. Under no circumstances are any of you to leave that room until I say so. Oh, and you’ll stop relying on my wife to parent your children when you can’t be bothered to, and you’ll put more effort into your children. Understood?”

The blush returned to your face once more as the Captain followed his orders, the Master's hypnotic suggestion the only thing he now knew. Digby clapped his hands together as you ushered the children into the room, staring at the Master with mesmerised eyes.

“Did you use your hypnosis powers on my father?”

“Yes, Digby, he did.” You answered, not trusting the answer the Master was about to give.

“And did he call you his wife?” Frannie asked, causing your blush to further deepen and your heart to race at lightning speed.

“Yes, he did that too. But you need to listen to what he said. Don’t leave that room, not even for a second. Those snowmen outside are very dangerous, and I don’t want either of you to be hurt by them or the Ice lady. Promise me?”

The Latimer children nodded quickly, Digby turning to look at the Master once again, who was anticipating the return of the distantly screaming Ice Governess.

“Can you make him cluck like a chicken too?”

“Not the time!” You interjected, Once again not trusting the Master’s answer, even with his confused expression. Once everybody was inside, the Master gripped the top of your arm.

“Stay here with them.”

He ordered, before letting go once more. The Master headed back into the hallway, and you were hot on his heels. You watched as the Master pressed a button on the TCE, aiming it at the top of the stairs as the Ice Governess came thundering down them. A shuddering wall of red energy blasted into existence, creating a barrier between the Ice Governess and the bottom of the staircase, the frozen creature slamming itself against the wall and hissing.

“MISS ME!?” It shrieked, staring down at the Master.

“How long will that hold?” You asked, and the Master turned around in shock.

“Oi, do I have to hypnotise you too? I told you to stay inside.”

“Oh, well I didn’t listen.”

“You really enjoy disobeying me, don’t you dear?”

You smiled fondly, the gap between the pair of you closing faster and faster.

“Yeah, I do. It’s one of the things that make you love me.”

“Oh, is it really?”

“Afraid so, Master.”

“Who said I love you?”

The gap between you both was non existent. You met each others eyes, your own heart pounding at lightning speed, your breath caught in your throat as stared the Master down, each of you daring the other to move first. The Masters lips parted, and you instantly took your chance, colliding your lips together as your hands reached to grasp hold of his face. The Master sank into the kiss with no restraint, quickly taking charge as his hands reached to grasp hold of your corseted waist. He pushed his lips against your own, your noses slotting next to each other to close the distance even further. All the while, the Ice Governess shrieked and slammed her face into the wall, the breath escaping from your lungs as you poured every part of your soul into the Master's touch. But soon you needed air, your lips breaking from one another but your touch remaining strong. You stared at the Master, and the Timelord returned the gaze, the silence between you thick and unbearable as your foreheads stayed pushed together.

“I keep my ring on a chain and wear it everyday.” You blurted, your cheeks burning hot. The Master smiled, chuckling softly as he brushed the hair from your face. He always did that. You loved him doing that.

“Of course you did.” He teased, “You always were so sentimental, love.”

“I just couldn’t, I don’t know why-”

“I know.” The Master said, rather softly. “I-”

Suddenly, the front door bell rang once again, the ringing invasive and persistent. The Master scowled, his hands pulling themselves from your waist as he clenched his hands into fists, his fingers still curled around the TCE in his grasp. He always hated being interrupted. This time was no different. He stormed towards the doorway, shoulders pushing back, his chin raised high. This time you hung back, watching from a distance, the Ice lady still screaming from her spot at the top of the stairs. 

The Master swung the door open, his glare palpable as a stranger stood in the doorway. A stranger to you, perhaps, but the Master seemed to know him well. Well enough for the tension to feel worthy of cutting with a sword, let alone a knife.

“Release the Ice woman to us.” The stranger said, his face solemn and eyes full of determination.

“You have five minutes.”

The stranger turned away with no further word, and the Master slammed the door shut with a furious heave.

“Who was that?” You asked hurriedly, following the Master as he headed towards the bottom of the stairs.

“Doctor Simeon. A very old enemy of the Doctor. And now, a very new enemy of mine. I don’t think he’s keen to be business partners anymore.”

“Why, what did you do?”

The Master smiled weakly, scratching at the back of his neck.

“I may have, possibly… turned up at his house, killed all his staff, and ransacked his personal files while insulting him to his face.”

“Wonderful.”

“All while dressed up as Sherlock Holmes.”

“I’m sure- what? Why?”

“What?”

“Why did you dress up as Sherlock Holmes?”

“Because I was investigating! We’d already had a bit of a disagreement earlier, I needed a suitable disguise.”

“But Sherlock Holmes? Really?”

The Master threw his hands in the air, exasperated. You could hardly contain your smirk.

“Who else? It’s the nineteenth century, for god’s sake. I couldn’t exactly go as Batman or Scooby bloody Doo, could I?”

The Master turned back to the bottom of the staircase, glancing up at the Ice Governess. She was still shrieking, slamming herself into the energy wall, hissing and baring her fangs. You blinked away all previous confusion, following the Master’s gaze.

“Right. All that aside, explain him to me- he wants the ice woman?”

“No, the snow wants the ice woman. He’s just the one working with the snow. And we need to keep her away from them or else.”

“I’m hoping you have a plan.”

The Master rolled his eyes, snatching an umbrella from the umbrella stand and lightly hitting you on the head with it. You gaped with confusion, your hands instinctively reaching out to take the umbrella from the Master's hands, turning your attention back to the Ice Governess.

“If the snow gets ahold of her, it’s goodbye to you lot. She’s the perfect blueprint for the snow in human form, human DNA mixed with Ice. You can’t exactly take over the earth with hunks of wet mush, can you? Imagine the carnage during a heat wave. But a humanoid figure, made of ice, that won’t melt? Oh, you could work such magic.`”

“She can’t stay here, then.” You argued. “Not with the children in the house, we’ll all be massacred.”

“As long as she’s out, but away from the snow, nobody’s getting massacred. I need you to stay in the parlour, watch the snow and for once, do as you’re told.”

The Master said, raising the TCE to the shimmering red wall. The wall disappeared into nothingness, shuddering out of existence. You stepped up to join the Masters side just as he pointed the TCE behind him once more, the shimmering wall reappearing at the very bottom of the stairs. The Masters double take was almost comical, his eyes rolling deeply into his head as he stared at you expectantly.

“Seriously?!” He asked, but you didn’t have time to reply. The ice lady swung at your head, causing you to duck beneath her arm, and the Master's hand clasped hold of your own in an ironclad grip.

“MISS ME?!” The Ice Governess screamed, the Master charging up the stairs and dragging you along with him.

“Why don’t you ever listen?” He yelled, almost tripping over the top step.

“Because you always tell me to do stuff I don’t want to do!” You replied, almost tripping over the same step right afterwards.  The Master stopped on the landing, staring at you incredulously as he dropped your hand.

“Oh great, we’re back together two seconds and there’s already a row.”

“We’re what?!” You asked, startled, the Ice Governess close behind.

“MISS ME?!” She hissed again, swiping up the stairs.

“Ok, why does she keep doing that?”

“Mirroring, it’s random mimicry- we need to get on the roof!”

“THIS WAY!”

You grasped the Master's hand once again, dragging him up a second flight of stairs towards the third floor, the Master flailing behind as he resisted the tug of your arm. You pivoted on the landing, pointing wildly at the distant reading nook beneath the large stained glass window.

“That window!”

“Give!” He gestured to the umbrella, which you had no idea you were still holding onto. You threw it in his direction and the Master grabbed it with ease. He headed straight towards the window, clunkily clambering his way through the open glass and planting his feet on the small area of flat roofing between the two gables. You attempted to follow, climbing onto the bench and leaning through the open pane of glass, when you felt your dress bunch up at the side and snag upon the hinges. You tried to pull yourself free, yanking against the resistance, all to no avail. You let out a panicked whine, and the Master spun around in confusion.

“Oi, c’mon, what are you doing?”

“My bustle is stuck!” You replied, yanking harder on the side of the window and sending the Master a panicked expression. 

“Oh, for crying out loud!” The Master rolled his eyes, running over to the window and throwing his arms around your waist and yanking backwards. With two yanks you were pulled free, gravity snatching command of your body as you tumbled forwards on top of the Masters chest, the Timelord ending up flat on his back on top of the snow coated roof.

You gaped down at him, the familiar heat of your blush returning.

“Y’know, things would go so much smoother if you took that dress off.” The Master suggested, his hand resting on the small of your back. You gasped, pulling away and sending him a curious expression.

“And risk me catching my death for your amusement?”

“I’d find it more attractive than amusing, honestly.”

“Right, hold on, I'm so confused.” Raising yourself to stand, you pushed off from the Masters chest. The Timelord stood up, watching as you brushed down your dress and snatched the umbrella from his grasp.

“First you tell me the only reason you’re here is because I got lucky, then you call me your wife again, then you tell me to stay away, then you kiss me and start flirting again.”

“Now?!” The Master yelled, eyes wide.

“You want to discuss all this right now?!”

“Because this is another test, I can feel it! You’re testing me!” You yelled back, gesturing wildly with the umbrella.

“Am I really!?”

“Yes! You’re always playing mind games. This is a test!”

“MISS ME?!” The Ice Governess was once more at the window, growling and snarling with her razor sharp icicle teeth.

“Master, now would be a great time for that plan!”

“Why would I tell you if it’s a test?”

You stared at him in disbelief, eyes widening.

“What?!”

The Master shrugged, folding his arms across his chest.

“If you think this is a test, it’s a test. You think I've got a plan, tell me what it is.”

“What’ll happen if I fail?”

“Well, it’ll kill you, and I'll end up wasting another body.”

“Not good then.”

“Understatement of the century, love. C’mon, do I have a plan?”

The Ice Governess had begun to disappear through the window into a cloud of ice shards, rematerializing herself from the ground up on the roof top, rebuilding herself shard by shard. You looked back towards the Master who was waiting expectantly. You put your mind into action. There had to be clues, you could figure out exactly what he was testing you on. Your chest was pounding as you thought hard, the Masters watching eyes heavy as you slowly began to piece everything together.

“Less than thirty seconds, love. I suggest you hurry or we’ll be dead where we stand.”

Stand. That was it! Where you stand! The lightbulb had officially gone off in your brain.

“If we wanted to escape we’d have gone either down the building or through the back door.”

“Interesting-”

“And if we wanted to hide, we’d be on the other side of the roof.”

“Keep going-”

“But we decided to climb here. Small space, not much room for a run up. But we brought THIS!”

You gestured with the umbrella once again, the Master grinning with devious pride as you swung the umbrella into the sky, the handle hooking itself firmly onto the bottom rung of the ladder. With a grunt you yanked the ladder down to plant its feet on the top of the building, the metal legs sinking into the snow as you brandished the ladder with pride. The Ice Governess had almost completely reassembled herself, the gust of frozen wind floating dangerously through the air.

“Call for a TARDIS?”

The Master hummed triumphantly. 

“Never doubted you for a second.”

“After you.”

“No, after you, I insist.”

You grasped hold of the ladder, laughing at the Master's ever growing grin.

“After you, I’m wearing a dress!”

“Why do you think I’m insisting you first?”

“Master, get up that ladder before I hit you with this umbrella.”

The Master chuckled, grasping hold of the rungs of the ladder and beginning the ascending climb. You watched him creep up higher and higher, tilting your head and smiling as you watched from beneath.

“Those pants do wonders for your ass, Master.”

The Masters ascent paused upon the ladder, his head turning over his shoulder to face you with a scandalised expression.

“Miss Montague, a little professionalism!”

“Never.” You stuck out your tongue in return. The Ice Governess had assumed her full form once again, letting out a beastly howl as she began to shuffle across the roof. With an elegant hop you stood upon the bottom rung of the ladder, clearing your throat and smiling sweetly.

“Termination of life comes with termination of employment, I'm afraid. Check your contract.” You mused, the Ice Governess snarling.

“In other words, get your own job. Cheerio!”

The umbrella tapped twice against the ladder, and you began to ascend up into the skies, the feet of the ladder disturbing the snow once again. The Ice Governess swiped furiously at your feet, growling into the air as you followed the ladder to the very top of the metal platform. The Master's hands were there to catch you, yanking you from the top of the top of the ladder and dragging you towards the base of the grand, spiralling staircase.

“Wait, you can move the cloud?” 

You asked, peering over the railing and watching the Ice Governess squirm. The Master shook his head, pulling you further towards the stairs and hooking the umbrella upon the closest railing.

“Don’t be ridiculous, nobody can move clouds. Anyone who says they can is a liar.”

“But what about the Cyber rain? Missy did it.”

The Master turned his head, visible debate on his face.

“They were Cyber clouds. Totally different. Real clouds? Not a chance. But the wind? Ever so slightly.”

The metal platform suddenly began to jolt, and you grabbed hold of the railing to steady yourself. In the few moments you’d taken your eyes off the Ice Governess, she’d managed to climb onto the ladder and begin scaling each rung. You looked at the Master in fear, the timelord nodding in agreement with something totally unknown.

“Good, she’s following us! Up we go!”

“Why is that a good thing?!” You called after him, the Master already scaling the steps like a madman.

“There’s no snow where we’re going!”

The two of you launched into a full sprint, keeping a tight grip on the bannister to stop yourself from tripping up on either the steps, your dress, or the Masters feet ahead of you. The Ice Governess was almost to the top of her own ladder, the view of London below becoming more and more incredible with each step you took. It was like the city was alive, glowing under the light of street lamps and fires, the denizens keeping as warm as they could on such a cold Christmas eve. You could see the pub from this high, not like anyone below would be able to see you.

“So, how long have you been a governess?” The Master asked, pulling you from your thoughts.

“Oh, not long. A few months?” You replied.

“But you moonlight as a barmaid in a shitty pub?”

“You want to have this chat now?” You asked, mirroring the Master's early sentiment. The Master paused on the stairs, turning his body to face you.

“We can’t chat if we’ve been massacred, can we?”

“You said there’d be no massacre!”

“It was a rare bit of positive optimism on my part, hope you don’t mind.”

You swiftly returned to your ascent, suddenly noticing you’d scaled about 100 steps in a few seconds. You gaped at the skyline, everything around you looking like a miniature model, something the Master would happily display upon one of his many shelves. How could you have possibly gotten so high so quickly?

“I’m barely out of breath!” You called.

“Good, glad to know you’re keeping fit.”

“But how are we so high? We were barely off the ground!”

“Magic staircase.” The Master replied, making you groan.

“Hey, I could’ve said it’s taller on the inside, count your blessings.”

“What exactly is it we’re standing on?” You asked, stepping onto the cloud with far more ease than you did the first time.

 The Master crouched down, sticking his head through the layer of cloud before pulling himself back up again. He pulled the TCE from his pocket with ease, aiming it at the mouth of the staircase. You peered over his shoulder as the layer of cloud began to converge, collecting itself over the beginning of the staircase, forming a protective layer and sealing the entrance to the stairs shut.

“The same technology that kept her on the stairs. Super dense water vapour, that’ll keep her out for a while.”

The Master stood, slipping the TCE back inside his pocket and cracking his knuckles. The TARDIS loomed in the distance, gleaming even with her dirty exterior, a monument on the top of the cloud layer. The Master shoved his hands in his pockets, stepping up the porch steps and pushing open the door to the shack, wandering inside the TARDIS without a care in the world. But you held back, looking through the open doorway, the red glow of the central console looming through the dark of the porch.

 You waited, standing in conflict, your heart pounding a hole in your chest as your gut attempted to dig itself into the centre of the earth. After all this time, a part of you didn’t want to see the inside of the old girl. You didn’t want to know if he’d erased all signs of you. You didn’t want to know if he’d tried to move on.

The Master reemerged from the inside, staring at you curiously. He stood in the doorway, a barrier to the internal glow of the ship. He studied your expression carefully, watching the internal conflict play out with every single microexpression upon the face he’d memorised so well.

“You said if I walked out that door I'd never step foot inside again.” 

Your words broke the silence. The Master nodded, swallowing the lump that had attempted to take refuge within his throat.

“I did. If I recall, I was pretty angry at the time.”

“So was I. You were a bit of a-”

“Short fuse, yeah.” The Master finished. 

You gave a small laugh, a faint sound that bled into the wind. You stood in a deafening silence for what felt like eternity, until the Master softly jutted his head to the side.

“C’mon.” He said quietly. He was inviting you inside. Finally.

You took no time in crossing over towards the porch, the Master stepping inside the TARDIS, allowing you to follow. You stepped over the threshold, feeling the wave of warmth hit your skin, like the heat when you step off an aeroplane. It was tropical compared to outside, the console room still as eclectically cluttered as ever. The piles of previous interests, the posters, the mementos, the projects, the plans. The TARDIS was exactly the same as the day you’d left it. The walls of the ship began to hum, the engines whining and whirring, chirping a welcome. She was obviously glad you were back. She was proclaiming you were home.

“You should’ve heard her last night.” The Master said, leaning against the hexagonal console unit, the square time rotor buzzing with lights.

“I thought she’d blown an engine.”

“You haven’t changed a thing.” You replied. The Master nodded, following your gaze as you admired the walls around you. You spotted a large investigation board in the corner, a small smile crossing your lips. You knew he’d have one of those. Even if it didn’t have-

“I thought the red thread would be a bit much.” The Master said, finishing your thought. You turned to face the Time lord. He’d pushed himself from the console and was now standing in front of you, studying your eyes once more.

“It would’ve been fun.” You replied.

“I would’ve insisted. If I'd been here when you’d put it up.”

“You can be here now, if you want.”

The Master's reply caught you off guard. You felt your lips part, your tongue trying to find the words your brain was currently mixing into an incomprehensible soup. You fought to string together a sentence that could encompass everything you felt, every question you had, every thought that was crossing your mind. Something that would explain everything.

“Why did you stay?” Was the sentence that won.

“You had the TARDIS. You could have left me here, gone off back into the universe, gone back to harassing the Doctor and causing chaos. But you didn’t. You built yourself a magic staircase and a movable cloud, and you stayed. Why?”

The Master pressed his lips into a thin line, and you could tell his mind was attempting the same brew. You could always tell when the Master was thinking and masking his thoughts at the same time, his eyes would squint ever so slightly, his lips would part like he was waiting to announce whatever plan he’d concocted. Instead of a grand plan, a small, earnest smile spread itself across the Master's face. 

“Because I couldn’t leave.” He said in return.

“But you could.”

“No, I couldn’t. I really tried. I left for a day. Right after you’d left, I tried to take myself away. I went and watched a planet burn, some insignificant micro nation. I tried to enjoy their armageddon, I really did. But I couldn’t.”

“Why?” You asked softly. The Master tilted his head, his look practically begging you to figure out the obvious, his mouth unwilling to articulate the thought he was so desperate not to share. You stepped closer, realisation washing over you.

“Because… I wasn’t there?”

“What fun is performing with no audience? Spreading chaos, with nobody there to help?” The Master asked. You already knew the answer.

“I came back, hoping you’d see the error of your judgement and want to come back here, work it all out. But… I might have underestimated your stubbornness.”

“Wow, thanks.”

“Or, maybe I was a little too… cruel. Then, things started happening. Alien, evil things and you know me, never one to let a good bit of chaos go. It was pretty tempting, ending the world at the turn of the twentieth century. But once again, I couldn’t enjoy myself.”

“And because you were bored, you decided to… try and save Earth?”

The Master shook his head awkwardly.

“I like to call it… preserving certain important timelines. I am a Timelord, after all.”

“Hold on.” You said, the small smile upon your face slowly growing into a full grin.

“Preserving timelines? You’ve never cared about the laws of time, that’s your whole thing. Who’s timeline could you possibly care that much about?”

The Masters' all knowing gaze returned, and you felt the knot in your stomach explode into a colony of butterflies. You stepped even closer, your hand reaching to cup the Masters cheek. His skin was warm against your palm. The touch sent a surge of electricity though your skin.

“Master?..” You asked softly. 

“Did you turn down destroying the Earth because It would mean I didn’t exist anymore?”

The Master's lips pressed into a thin line, his stare able to see a thousand yards in front. You could feel the heat burning in his cheeks, every ounce of him squirming with uncomfortable realisation, his shoulders almost reaching his ears.

“That… may or may not have been a factor.” He lied through his teeth.

“You old romantic.”

You laughed softly, reaching to grasp the other side of his face and pull him into a kiss. This kiss was much softer, every word the pair of you had been desperate to say spreading across your lips. The Masters tension disappeared with every second, your foreheads pushing together as you felt your heart finally steady into an easy rhythm. His hands had snaked around your waist, pulling you closer, refusing to let you go. You could sense the warmth he held within his body pass into your own, everything slotting into place exactly where it should be. Everybody slotting into place exactly where they should. When he finally pulled away from your lips, the Master refused to stop. Pressing small, chaste kisses to the side of your mouth, your eyes fluttering shut. Everything felt right again, like the itch you’d been struggling to scratch had been satiated. Like you were home again.

“Travel with me.” The Master whispered between pecks.

“Run away with me. Stay with me.”

Softly, you nodded against his touch, returning his soft kisses with one of your own.

“Yes.” You replied. The Master sighed in content, pulling his face from your own and pressing a kiss to your forehead. 

“I still have your shawl, by the way.” He admitted. You gave a short giggle.

“Thankyou for keeping it safe for me. Next time I have to sneak around, I’ll make sure not to lose any of my disguise.”

“Don’t worry, I think I left my Deerstalker in Doctor Simeon’s office.”

You smiled, watching him excitedly pull away from your person, circling around to the console and fiddling with the buttons and levers, the TARDIS chirping and lighting up with jubilation. 

“Oh love, we’re going to have so much fun. You’ll see. So many places to go!”

You felt yourself fiddling with the chain under your dress, your fingers scratching at the chain that hung loosely around your neck. You pulled it from under your collar, the ring shimmering in the TARDIS light, your heart feeling like it could burst with joy out of your chest. You’d kept it with you for so long, unwilling to part with the most beautiful piece of jewellery you’d ever seen. Reaching for the lobster clasp, you pulled the chain from your neck, the Masters exuberant ramblings a distant sound as you admired the glittering wedding ring. You needed to ask him to put it back on. You needed to do it correctly.

Suddenly, you felt yourself jolting backwards, the ring flying from your grasp and clattering onto the floor. You let out a shocked yelp, the freezing touch of clawed hands wrapped under your shoulders, dragging you back towards the door and out of the TARDIS.

“MISS ME?!” the voice behind you squawked, your eyes widening with fear.

The Master's head shot up from the console, his eyes equally widening in horror as he saw the Ice Governess begin to drag you back towards the edge of the cloud.

“NO!” he shouted, launching himself towards the door, his TCE raised and aimed at the snarling creature of ice.

“Master!” You cried, hand reaching towards the Timelord.

“Get off of me!”

“Let her go!”

The Ice Governess hissed, yanking you harder, your fingers desperately trying to pry her claws from their spot digging into your shoulder.

“The snow learns, I should have realised-” The Master hurriedly uttered. “She’d learnt to resist water vapour after being trapped on the stairs. Let her go!”

“Get off!” You pleaded, your face contorted in fear as you saw the Ice Governess teetering near the edge of the cloud.

“Let her go. Let her go now! NOW!”

“Master!” You cried, mouth parting in a terrified scream.

“NO, Y/N-” the Master yelled, his hand outstretched. If he could just grab hold of you, if he could just pull you back- but the ground disappeared from beneath your feet before he could reach. You felt the wind rushing past your ears as you tumbled to the ground, the distant call of the Master screaming your name. Everything seemed to slow down, the London skyline consuming you as you fell faster and faster, your life flashing before your eyes. Every happy thought, every fear, every nightmare, every dream- every part of you flickered across the forefront of your mind, arm still stretched to the heavens as you collided with the snow covered earth, the world around you disappearing with the wheeze of the TARDIS as the abyss swallowed you whole.

It was a low light that surrounded you the first time you woke again. The soft touch of a palm on your forehead, the gentle caress of a thumb on the back of your hands. Your eyes blinked open, the pain in your head a throbbing percussion, your sense of time thrown to the wayside. But the Master was there, waiting for you, smiling gently as you slowly became acclimated to the familiar sight of the Latimer parlour.

“How’s your head?” The Master asked. 

You turned your head to see Frannie and Digby hugging the maid with a tight grip. You shook your head with a smile.

“Not in front of the children, Master.” You replied, every word as painful as they were cathartic.

“Am I going to die?” You asked. The Master laughed softly.

“Such a mood killer. I was going to keep it light with innuendo and small talk.”

“You never talk small.” You wheezed. The Master grinned.

“See, you still have all your memories. I think you’ll be just fine.”

“How do you know?”

Reaching into his top pocket, the Master produced something shimmering, even in the dark of the parlour. On close inspection you could see it was your ring, having slipped off of the chain after hitting the floor.

“Because I haven’t put this back on your finger. And I'm very persistent when I want things to be done.”

The Master took hold of your hand, ready to slip the ring onto your finger, when your other hand stopped him from doing so.

“You haven’t asked me.” You whispered. “You need to ask me before you put that on.”

The Master huffed lightly out of his nose, leaning in closer and holding up the ring.

“Y/N, will you marry me… again?”

You blinked softly, staring longingly at the ring.

“Are you going to stop the world from ending?” You replied, the Master raising an eyebrow. He hadn’t expected that response.

“Preserving the timelines… and all that?”

The Master nodded, finally understanding.

“Maybe. If I do, will you say yes?”

You took the ring from the Masters fingers, clutching the small band between your trembling fingers and holding it longingly within your palm.

“Go save the world, help children, grant Christmas wishes.” You ordered, the Master chuckling at his own words from earlier.

“If you win, I’ll still be here to give you an answer when you get back.”

The Master leaned in closer still, your noses almost touching.

“Is that a promise?”

He asked. You smiled, lifting your finger to draw two crosses over the Masters chest.

“Cross your hearts.”

“You’re supposed to cross your own, Love.” The Master said. You shook your head the best you could.

“Don’t tell me what to do, Master.” You replied, before your eyes fluttered shut once again, the feeling of the Masters lips on your forehead the last sensation in your mind.

The Master returned once more that evening. The cuts and bruises upon his body had managed to heal, leaving behind traces of crimson and memories intangible. He’d worked as fast as he could, defeating the evil with everything he had. He’d returned to the Latimer household just before midnight. But by then you were almost gone. Whatever he’d done to keep you stable had done all it could, and now you were in your final moments.

 The children were crying, the same tears that had melted the snow minutes before. The Master walked towards the Captain, meeting his eyes and taking control.

“You’re going to stand up, and you’re going to comfort your children. You’ll be the father they need right now. When you go to bed, you’ll wake tomorrow and not remember a thing. But you’ll be there when they need you.” He commanded, the Captain blinking as if waking up from the strangest of dreams. 

The Master stepped over the old carpet to stand by your bedside, crouching down to rest his chin on his arms, looking over at the Latimer children who were tearfully looking right back.

“Is she?...” Digby daren’t finish his question. The Master sighed.

“Almost.” 

Frannie let out a small sob, her fathers arms surrounding her as best they could. Which, thanks to the Master, was the best they’d ever been. In their eyes, he saw utter heartbreak. Two children, who’s cries had unknowingly saved the day, sobbing over the one human the Master could bring himself to care for. Pushing aside every piece of hatred he had for humans, and crying, he knew what he had to do.

“Tell me about her.” The Master said. “Tell me about Miss Montague.”

Digby wiped his eyes with his sleeve, looking at the Master with a sniffle.

“She was kind. She always told us stories… totally true ones.”

“What stories did she tell you?” He replied. Digby smiled weakly.

“That she’d been to space.” Frannie mumbled against her fathers chest.

“She said she’d been to every country in the world.”

“And that she lived in a time machine that could take her anywhere she liked, and that she’d fought monsters and robots and met aliens. But I know that it wasn’t true.”

The Master chuckled, smiling at the young boy. How foolish. How human. How wonderfully presumptuous.

“Oh, but it is.” He replied. “Every story’s true. Your governess is really a time traveller. She’s really my wife, and we live in a ship called the TARDIS. And guess what?”

“What?” The two children asked. The Master's smile widened.

“I’m an alien.”

“No way.” Digby whispered in disbelief. The Master nodded, chuckling.

“Yes way, Digby. I’m from a distant planet in the stars. I have two hearts, and I'm nearly 2000 years old.”

“But you don’t look old.” Frannie said. The Master smirked.

“I’ve got a good Doctor.” He said, a joke only he would understand.

“She told you about my ability to hypnotise people, but I also have a power that keeps me alive. It’s a power that means every time I get hurt, I can fix it. See?” The master pointed to the ghost of a cut on his forehead. All that was left was a dribble of dried blood. The wound was completely healed.

“But sometimes, I get hurt pretty badly. Or I get really, really old. Then I have to change my entire body. I may act a little differently, but I’m still me. It’s called regeneration.”

“Is Miss Montague an alien?” Digby asked softly. The Master chuckled, shaking his head.

“No, Digby. Just me.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Frannie asked, sitting up in the Captain's arms.

The Master stood over your bedside, your chest rising and falling in only the faintest rhythm. He pushed the hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear and brushing down the side of your face. He turned once more to look at the Latimer children, raising his right hand lightly in the air.

“Because, humans, I'm about to do something incredible. And nobody will ever believe you.”

Ever so slowly, the Master began to wiggle his fingertips, his eyes fluttering shut as he concentrated hard. The children watched in wonder as the Master's hand began to be engulfed in a glittering, golden glow, the ethereal shimmer floating into the air and travelling down the Timelords arm. He gave a small grunt as the regeneration energy began to shimmer through his other hand, the energy coursing through his body like the warm kiss of the sun, the heat touching every part of his body as he focused desperately on what he needed to do. The Master leant down towards your face, his glowing hands taking soft purchase of your cheeks, the once silent room alight with the hum of regeneration. 

“You better have a good answer for me after this.”

Gently, the Masters lips connected with your own, his nose slotting beside your own as he focussed on what he wanted. He felt the beat of your heart within his mind, his desire stitching you back together, his will making you whole. He was the Master, and even if you weren't going to obey him, the powers of regeneration certainly were.

 He couldn’t remember what number body he was on. He’d been through that many, stealing some and mutilating others.  He’d abused his regenerative capabilities to a degree that would make even Rassilon impressed. But now, he needed them to be accurate more than ever. He kissed until he had no air left in his lungs, pulling away from your body with hope etched across his expression.

 He waited, the single moment feeling like a lifetime, his gaze not turning away from you for a second.

The clock in the parlour struck the final knell of 12. It was Christmas morning.

Your eyes flew open with a start.

You gasped for air, the world knitting itself back together through your eyelashes, the exhale of relief that escaped the Master enough to blow over the strongest of structures. Your fingers reached to clutch the Master's hands, the ring laying perfectly upon your chest.

“I saved the world. It’s a bloody Christmas miracle” The Master whispered above you.

“It felt pretty strange, though. After Missy and tonight, I don’t think I want to do it again.”

You laughed quietly, your sense of self returning once more, the sensation of the Masters lips still lingering on your own. Lingering with the sensation of hope. Of life. Something the Master didn’t usually excel in. But he often worked in mysterious ways.

“And I saved you. Not to rush your reincarnation, but I still don’t have an answer…”

The Master lifted the ring from your chest, holding it between his fingers. You chuckled softly, raising your hand to meet it.

“Yes.” You replied. “Yes, yes, yes.”

The Master grinned victoriously, sliding the ring upon your finger. Back where it belonged.

“I feel like I could run a marathon.”

You admitted, smirking deviously as the Master leaned in closer.

“Or, do something else.”

The Master gave a side glance to Frannie and Digby, who were still staring at the Master in amazement. The maid had fainted once more, and Captain Latimer was still under the Master's spell, whether he knew it or not. The Master turned back towards you with a raised eyebrow.

“Miss Montague, not in front of the children.” He chastised. 

You gave a small giggle. It was music to the Masters ears.

[vanishingreyes]

TIMING: Today, in the evening LOCATION: Downtown, Conor’s window PARTIES: Conor and Xóchitl SUMMARY: Music reaches Xó’s ears and she approaches Conor’s window, eager to know who might be producing all that sound. CONTENT WARNINGS: parental death mention

It had been a while since he’d started a new piece. He’d been playing with an ensemble before he got here, and they would practice twice a week all together. He missed that, but he hadn’t really had the time to search for something like that. The shop had kept him busy, and all those new things he learned about himself, all those fae he had met, they’d made his anxiety spike. This was meant to help with that. He always felt better after playing. 

Adding notes with his pencil and his felt pens, the faun was finishing his first read of the first pages of Sibelius’ violin concerto. Usually, his cat ran out whenever he picked up his violin, and today would not be any different. Deciphering a score was not the most pleasant part, surely, but it still managed to fill his heart with joy, even as he noticed which part would be tricky for him. It wasn’t Paganini, thank God, but those damn trills were going to be a damn nightmare.

He could lose track of time when he played, but he tried not to inconvenience his neighbors too much. He’d just arrived in the neighborhood, after all, and he doubted they’d approve of him for long if he played past 9pm. 

The near-summer evening air was cooler than the day, though still warm enough. Which was ultimately for the best, because Xóchitl did prefer the heat - at least if given the choice between that and the cold cold. So a walk was nice, made doubly so by the fact that she’d gotten to leave work early - there’d been no clients after 3pm, and she’d taken advantage of that to go and do some reading at the library. Another small test to see how easily she’d be able to access the archives, the past news clippings, no matter how much she didn’t entirely like the idea of dealing with that.

How much she disliked the fact that Mackenzie’s death hadn’t been a front-page story. Except that, if she were entirely honest with herself, having something like that be complete front page news was likely some great level of entirely inappropriate. 

She glanced around her, the streetlights bringing her out of her thoughts, as was the sound of a violin playing. “Well, I know I’m not in some fancy-ass European city,” she muttered, more to herself than anybody else, “so what’s…” Xóchitl looked up, trying to discern the source of the noise. 

“Nice music!” She called, hoping whoever was playing the music would hear.

It didn’t take much more than two words for the faun’s cheeks to turn pink. A great part of him was tempted to remain away from the open window, another, small part felt bad to leave a stranger alone in the street with her words and, surely, a whole lot of embarrassment at being ignored like that. With a sigh, he dropped his instrument from his shoulder into his left hand and headed toward the opening to look down to the pavement. 

There was a young woman looking around, up at the house facades, trying to point out precisely where the sound came from. It struck him as odd. Conor always had good ears, and never had this problem. Maybe she had bad ears. “Hi,” he gave her a small gesture of his hand, something meant to accompany his words. “Tha-” He stopped in his tracks and offered a sheepish smile. “That’s nice of you to say, but huh, it’s really not…” 

“I mean, I’m not a musician,” Xóchitl called back up, finally having found the source of the music, “so I’m not an expert, but I think you sounded good, and my moms used to take me to the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops, so I like to think I’ve got a decent ear for that, and besides, I like it, so that’s all that should matter, right?” She raised an eyebrow up at him.

“But also, if you don’t consider that nice, what do you like, as far as music goes?” She’d stopped fully now, feet planted on the ground, looking up at his window. “I’m Xóchitl, by the way, just so you know the name of the woman who’s decided to talk to you in the middle of the night.” She made a small face, “I play piano, by the way. So maybe I know something about music.”

“You’re from Boston?” He hadn’t been in Boston in years. His whole family lived there and that was precisely why he couldn't go back. His accent still remained, after all this time, in the way he dropped his Rs or rounded his Os. 

His cheeks turned red and while she commented on his music taste, he tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. "It's not that I don't like what I'm playing, but I'm just reading the notes right now. It has no heart right now…" he paused . "Give it a few weeks," with a small smile, he set his violin in his lap, sitting against the window sill. "I'm Conor, I work downstairs," he explained. She told him she played the piano. He frowned. "I thought you said you weren’t a musician.” Shifting lightly, he glanced down at her : "how long have you played?"

“Lived from when I was eight, but no, I’m from here.” Xóchitl made a small face, again, before shaking her head. “I mean not literally here, I grew up on World’s End Isle. Which doesn’t have a lot of kids. Or didn’t. I don’t know what it’s like now.” Mackenzie had visited all the time. Even if the house was up for sale, Xóchitlwas pretty sure she wouldn’t have been able to live there again. It was bad enough being in the town, going back to her childhood home that probably had “Mac and Xó, BFFS 4EVER” carved into her closet door would’ve been entirely impossible.

“Are you inviting me back in a few weeks, then?” Her lips curved up into a smirk. “I’d be honored.” Xóchitl gave him a small wave as he sat at his window sill. “Flower shop? I’ve been meaning to stop by, so now I’ve got enough more of a reason to.” At his question, she paused. “Twenty-one years, I think? I started when I was eight. How about you?”

“Ah, well I got here a couple of months ago. You must know Boston better than I know the area,” the faun assured her, leaning his back against the window’s frame to get more comfortably seated. “I have only been there for wedding venues. I didn’t take much of a look around,” he didn’t have much time for that. “People don’t like having kids at weddings nowadays. It’s a bit sad.” Sure enough, they were loud, and they kept moving around, but he remembered he liked weddings back when he was a little kid. Maybe he didn’t though, and he just liked spending the whole day with his mother instead of waiting for her to come back home from work.

“You want to come back in a few weeks?” Conor looked down at her, and catching her smile, felt his cheeks warm up a little. Was she making fun of him and questioning his word or did she really want to listen to the progress? "Huh, sure. If you want," he glanced down at the front of his store then back at her, or rather at a spot on the window sill. "Oh I started when I was 6 years old," with a half shrug, he glanced up. It wasn't precisely a lie, and it beat telling her he'd practiced for around 60 years. "You know, I think that makes you a musician." He noted, unsure of what she might have meant by that.

“I might, yeah.” she kept her gaze focused up toward him. “But I’m not a tour guide by any means.” Xóchitl nodded, “That’s true. My moms had me at their wedding, but to be fair, they couldn’t legally get married until just about a year after we moved.” That was too much personal information, and Xóchitl involuntarily winced - backpedaling a few steps. “It is sad, I mean, I get it sometimes, but never wanting kids anywhere seems a bit weird.” She and Mackenzie had gone with Mackenzie’s mom more than a few times to help cater events - she was a baker or a cook or something that Xóchitl couldn’t quite remember just this moment, but she did remember eating frosting out of a bowl next to her friend, feet hitting the doors underneath the countertop.

“I’d like to.” She offered him another smile. “We can communicate from the window again, I’m not inviting myself in, unless you’d like that.” Xóchitl sighed. “Two years before I did, then. He looked to be roughly her age, maybe slightly older - though she’d never been too good at guessing ages. “Well, then I’ll accept it, even though that won’t make me change my actual job, it’s nice of you to call me that.”

“Oh, no, I don’t want a tour,” Conor preferred exploring the area at his own rate, without rushing through town. On his first day in town, he had gone for a walk in his neighborhood, and ended up enjoying a stroll by the sea front. It was a nice town, if you could forget about that weird smell that enveloped it now for months. His garden provided for a nice change of air, but even his flowers weren’t enough to completely fade off the scent of rotten eggs and charcoal. 

“Oh you have two moms?” He fell silent, as if digesting the information. “I have one. I have no dad though,” he was happy to keep it at that. Conor had just gotten used to write parent as a singular word, that was all. His father wasn’t worth thinking about. Conor felt he’d have felt even better had he not existed at all. 

“That’s no way to listen to music,” he protested. He wouldn’t invite people over, he couldn’t bring himself to, but he wouldn’t allow for this either. “We could meet elsewhere?” The town was large enough, and offered enough options when it came to meetings with strangers. “I suppose. We look about the same age,” he gave her a small nod. “I don’t think you need to make it your job to call yourself a musician,” was it how that worked? You could play music for decades and still not be considered a musician? 

I wasn’t offering one. Xóchitl nearly said, but Conor was being nice, so she held back. “Yeah, that makes sense, and I mean I know some ways around town, but not having lived here in about two decades makes me not the best choice. 

“I do.” She nodded at his comment. “Well, my moms have always been married, so I also don’t have a dad. I - I’m sorry you don’t, though, if that was something you wanted.” Having two moms had always been the best for her - though she didn’t know of any other way, of course - but Xóchitl liked to think that even if she had the chance to have had a dad, nothing could ever have topped having the two best moms in the world.

“Sure, we could meet elsewhere. Whatever works for you, though I suppose if you want me to play, we’d have to go somewhere where there’s a piano. My house is always an option, but that might be too soon.” Xóchitl fought off a smirk. “That’s fair. Also maybe it’s just personal preference? I don’t know. If you want to consider yourself one, then I say you are.”

“That makes you a terrible choice,” Conor agreed. He wasn’t sure how much the town had moved in over 20 years, but it was safe to say that she didn’t remember much of it either way. How much did he really remember of Boston outside of the block around his mom’s apartment, aside from the way to school, or the park? 

He gave her a shrug. He didn’t like talking about that. “I’m glad you had a happy family,” not that his family had been unhappy, but they weren’t the sort you found in picture books. Every father’s day, Conor was one of those rare kids who came back home with a present he couldn’t give to the right person. His grandfather collected them dearly. He wondered if things would have been different for him, with a father. He wondered what would have happened if his father had stuck around. His expression darkened the more he thought about it. He tried to shake it off before she would notice. 

“Huh, yeah. I am pretty sure you’re not supposed to invite strangers over to your house,” even if he knew her name, he didn’t know her, aside from the piano playing or the two moms thing. “I play music, and so do you. We’re musicians,” the faun rose to his hooves, turning around to come lean his elbows on the edge of the window instead. “Don’t you have one of those portable keyboards?” 

“It does, I’d agree.” Which at least meant that there was little-to-no chance he’d ask for her view of the town. Which was something she was more than happy to have anybody not ask her about. Even if Xóchitl couldn’t pretend that she’d never lived in town (hell, there were still diner workers and librarians who’d known her twenty-one years ago), she could pretend like she didn’t still have a good portion of the town’s layout memorized. If only because maybe, somehow, that would help with figuring out what happened to Mackenzie.

“I’ve never taken that for granted.” She knew not to. Xóchitl also knew that her moms wouldn’t have faulted her for anything, but that was just another reason to love them. The fact that they truly did love her unconditionally. She’d elected to make cards and gifts for both of her mothers whenever the class did father’s day things – of course, she celebrated mothers’ day with both of them, but more gifts for them were never bad, and she’d taken to glaring at any teacher who questioned what she was doing. Thankfully, very few ever had.

“Seems like one of the first rules regarding stranger danger, huh?” Xóchitl offered another shrug. “Okay, so not that. We do both play music. We are musicians.” She offered him a bright smile as he came to the window. “I can see you better now, so that’s nice. But - yes.” Or she could buy one, because she preferred her non-portable piano. “Sorry, very good point, yes, I can bring it just about anywhere.”

“You shouldn’t take them for granted,” he paused. “They’ll be dead soon.” She looked about his age and he seemed to have forgotten, for a moment, that this was only true for him. Conor was nearing his seventieth year. Of course his mother was close to passing away. 

He returned to Xóchitl her smile, as though he never said something so grim. “That would be lovely, I look forward to it.” It would be nice, playing with someone again. 

“If you like it enough, we could ask around if others would be interested in playing with us,” he took a look down the street. “But I’m getting ahead of myself,” and a red tint colored his cheeks once again. “We can go buy music sheets across the street. The shop owner, Leti, she probably has them,” he paused. “Any piece you’d like to do in particular?” 

“I - yeah.” Reminders of death never sat well with Xóchitl. Because Mackenzie hadn’t been supposed to die when she did, they weren’t even double digits in age, and everything had gone wrong, then. “That’s true, I guess. Except they aren’t that old. They’re not even sixty, yet.” But he probably hadn’t meant that in a rude way. Maybe he was just far more matter-of-fact than other people were. “I look forward to it too.”

Xóchitl nodded, “that could be good, we can see about it.” She nodded again, “Leti? I know her, actually. She’s wonderful, and she’d have excellent taste in music, so I can tell that you’re smart, and you’ll do well with this sort of thing. Logical. If that makes any sort of sense. But I’d be up for anything - whatever strikes your fancy.”

Sixty. About his brother’s age. He didn’t want him to go so soon, but Conor knew he had no control over it, and that all he could do was cherish whatever time he had left with his loved one, even if he could never see them again. 

“You can tell that I’m smart?” Because he knew the woman across the street sold music sheets? “I’m really not that smart,” he shook his head, although didn’t care much to do more to dismiss her words of kindness. “Anyway, I’ll pick a sonata tomorrow. We can meet sometime this week to read it and start practicing right away,” he didn’t take her hesitancy to choose something as anything else but that. It didn’t occur to him that perhaps she was avoidant to get herself out of the interaction. He knew people lied all the time, and yet it never occurred to him that they did. 

“I mean, I’m not an expert on qualifying what is smart, but yes. Besides, aren’t you trying to make a good impression on me? It’s perfectly fine to say that you are, even if it’s a bit of a lie.” Xóchitl shrugged. “Well, you seem at least passably smart, then. You are a nice conversation partner, and I’ve enjoyed this.” She nodded, though she didn’t know if he could see that. “Sonata is perfect, and should I give you my number, or would you prefer to be called upon on the street again?” She’d only not chosen a piece because of her curiosity about what he’d pick. Nothing more - other than the fact that she was tired and didn’t want to try and think of one at the moment.

“I’m sure we’ll be experts in no time.” Xóchitl let her lips curve into a smile that was nothing but kind; a gentle sort; because the idea of playing music not all by herself was a very good sort of idea.

It’s fine to lie? His eyebrows curled. No. That was not fine. Lying was not fine. “Passably smart, alright, I’ll accept that,” shifting to rest his hip against the sill, he looked down at her, pointing toward the store front beneath him. “Just knock on my door, alright. No need to complicate very simple things, is there?” 

He gave her a shrug as his only answer. He wasn’t sure experts would be the term. He had played for over 60 years, he was beyond that. If she had been playing for 20 years, he was sure she would be fine too, had she been serious about it. “See you then,” Conor gave the girl a nod and a small wave. He’d never been great with social cues, and it was no wonder he bumped his head against the window’s edge as he stood back up and disappeared beyond the curtain. “I’m fine,” he called out. Stupid.

[echobx]

It's... complicated?- Rafe Cameron × polyam!reader & JJ Maybank × polyam!reader

summary: you're in a relationship with Rafe, but a one night stand with JJ turns into more and suddenly you find yourself entangled in a relationship that you don't plan on getting out of any time soon

general warnings: cheating, angst, fluff, smut, swearing, lying, reader being a bitch, talk of marriage angst warnings: mention of death, downward spiral, self-doubt, fighting (verbally), fighting (physically), traumatized reader smut warnings: p in v (unprotected), oral (f & m receiving), 3 way, cnc, creampie/cumdump, spanking, dirty talk, praise kink, degradation kink, (heavy) pda, subdrop adjacent, aftercare, foreplay, toy use (not primarily), overstimulation

word count: 19k

author's note: this started as a Rafe fic but immediately my brain fucked me over and then I was too deep to change it so I kept it and decided to explore the throuple idea. I wanted to not have it be cheating plot but I couldn't figure out how to do that while keeping the set dynamic, so I hope you're gentle with me on that :) I genuinely hope you enjoy it, it's the longest one part one shot I've ever written lol (p.s. I wanted to do dvp here but I couldn't find an appropriate place for it, but if you want it, I can write it separately)

   “Can you maybe not do lines on my boobs tonight? Last time you got some on my vintage Chanel dress and I haven't managed to get it out yet,” you ask Rafe while leaning in the door of his room, watching him get ready. 

   “I'll just buy you a new one,” he shrugs and buttons his shirt up.

   “That's not the point, babe, and you know it,” you shake your head, swaying your perfect curls. “It's also vintage, and you can't just buy a new one. Besides, I paid for it, not you.” 

   “You mean your dad paid for it?” he eyes you with a smirk playing on his pink lips. 

   “Nope, pretty sure that it counts for me now,” you smile, faking it as per usual when the topic of your dad comes up. “Dead people can't pay for shit.” 

   He steps over to you, tilting your chin up and kissing you. “Let's not talk about him. Instead, we can go and have fun, all right?” 

   “Eugh, whose house is this?” you scoff as he stops the car in the driveway. The mansion isn't even half the size of your own, and it makes you feel a little disappointed. 

   “Hey, be nice,” Rafe smiles and takes your hand up to kiss it before getting out and opening your door for you. 

   “I am always nice,” you tell him, but he knows it's a lie. Your way of being nice is what other people would call bitchy or bossy. You aren't nice like people want you to be, not since your dad died. He was the only one who you tried your best for. 

   “You know I love to see your claws out, but I have to sell shit tonight, so none of that, please,” Rafe begs, his arm tight around your waist. 

   You roll your eyes and look up at him, “fine.” 

   The party is already going, and a few people greet you while walking in. You find Topper and Kelce rather quickly, taking your seat next to Rafe you let your eyes wander as they talk. 

   “You know, you guys are boring as fuck,” you groan after having had to listen to them talk about golfing for twenty minutes straight. 

   “Since when are we here for your entertainment, y/n,” Kelce scoffs, but he gulps as you get up and lean over him. 

   “Maybe you should suck a dick to fix your fucking attitude,” you snarl and walk away towards the kitchen. You’ve never cared what Rafe's friends think of you, you’ve never cared what anybody thinks of you. 

   “Look at what the cat dragged in,” you roll your eyes at the blonde boy, who is leaning against the counter. His ring clad fingers are holding onto the solo cup, but the flirtatious smile is just for you. You’ve gathered as much over time. 

   “One day, you'll beg, y/l/n,” he says and takes a sip. 

   “Not if I make you beg first, Maybank,” you smirk and take the bottle of tequila to fill two shot glasses. 

   “I never beg,” he counters, and you laugh. 

   “Oh, I'd bet my BMW you do.” 

   “Does Rafe?” 

   “I won't tell you that, you'd just go runnin’round tellin’ people.” You poke the inside of your cheek with your tongue and hold the shot out for him to take. “Be happy that I'm keeping him on a leash. He'd have ripped your head off by now if I didn't.” 

   You watch him take the shot, and follow. The slight burn in your throat wakes you up, and the warmth in your stomach is familiarly cozy. 

   “And why would he do that?” JJ asks, tilting his head to the side. 

   “‘Cause you won't stop staring at my tits, Maybank,” you bite your lip and take the step over to him, leaning in and whispering into his ear. “I know how you look at me, as if I'm the ultimate price. But you wouldn't even be able to handle me on your best days, pretty boy.” 

   “You underestimate me, princess,” he whispers, and you pull away to look at him fully. 

   “Maybe in another life, Maybank,” you wink at him, grabbing the bottle of tequila and making your way back to the couch. 

   “What he want?” Rafe asks as soon as you get back and take your seat by his side. 

   “Nothing,” you sigh and kiss Rafe's cheek, leaving a lipstick mark behind. He doesn't need to know how much it riles you up when JJ flirts with you. How much you have to suppress the need to kiss him whenever you see him. It doesn't even make sense why it is like that. 

JJ and you have nothing in common, and you are happy about that. 

   You love being in a relationship with Rafe. You don't care much about love anyway, so why would you need to love the person you are in a relationship with if they are perfect on paper? Rafe is everything your dad ever wanted in a future son-in-law. He comes from good money, takes care of the people close to him, and knows how to act around money. You don't need to love him to build a good future with him. After all, your grandparents had done it the same way. And when you look at your own parents' life together, you keep wondering if it had really been the wisest decision to marry for love. 

   No, love is overrated, and so is whatever you feel when JJ looks at you. 

   “You sell any yet?” you ask straight out, and Rafe clears his throat and gives you a look that doesn't really make sense to you. “What?” 

   “You know they won't buy shit when you're here, unless you act it,” he whispers to you and you roll your eyes. 

   “Fine, but only one,” you cave, and for the next few hours you play the dumb girlfriend. For some reason, all of his buyers are some type of misogynistic asshole, and the only one who you could talk to without feeling looked down on is Barry. But Barry never gets invited to the parties, because he doesn't fit in. 

   To you, he's not much different than the businessmen your dad worked with, the same ones you will have to deal with once you're officially taking over the company. 

   “Baby, c’mere,” Rafe slaps his thighs, and you turn to straddle him, giving him a single warning glance to not fuck up. 

   “Love when you use my tits for it, babe,” you giggle stupidly, but internally you feel like throwing up. And it just gets worse when he puts a little line of the fine powder on your skin and dips his head down to snort it off. Your eyes cross with JJ's as soon as Rafe's head is down, and he vanishes from your vision the moment Rafe comes back up, wiping his nose. 

   “Thank you, baby,” he smiles and kisses you. It's a show. When you moan into him and buck your hips; and for once you're not sure if the show is for his clients, or for the blonde Pogue who can't keep his eyes off of you. 

   “I wanna go upstairs,” you whisper to Rafe and he nods. 

   “Just gimme ten and I'll meet you there.” 

   You get up and walk off, towards the stairs. A quick glance back to Rafe, who's focused on counting money, before you take the stairs, downstairs instead of up. 

   You decide to take a look around. The pool is a perfect 80 °F and if you had swimming stuff with you, you'd consider swimming for a while. Training a little to clear up your mind. 

   “Didn't you tell him you'd be upstairs, waiting?” You hear JJ behind you and turn around. 

   “And? I changed my mind. He doesn't care if he fucks me here or at home,” you shrug and JJ shakes his head. 

   “God, you really are something.” 

   “What do you want, Maybank?” you sneer, walking around the pool towards the sauna at the end of the room. The sound of your heels on the concrete floor echoes through the huge room. 

   “Why are you with him if you hate him so much?” he asks and starts walking closer, following you. 

   “I don't hate him. I hate his friends, anyone but Barry, basically. I hate how he acts around them. But I don't hate him,” you clarify, and JJ nods. 

   “But you don't love him.” 

   “Who needs love anyway,” you smile. The picture-perfect smile you’ve practiced in front of the mirror since you turned 12, the same one you’ve had to relearn when your dad died. It’s an ironclad mask. 

   “I forgot, you don't have a heart,” JJ smiles but drops it instantly. 

   “Tell me what you want, or leave,” you roll your eyes at him and he steps closer. Your heart starts racing as he leans over you, brushing a curl from your face and tucking it behind your ear. 

   “What do you want?” he rasps quietly and your eyes flutter, it's a reflex, and you don't know why. You don't understand why he has this effect on you. 

   “Nothing,” you press out, and his thumb ghosts your lips. 

   “I don't like when you lie to me, y/n,” JJ whispers, and you can't stop yourself from getting lost in his blue eyes. They are so different from Rafe's. JJ's eyes are bright and hopeful, they feel like happiness entrapped to you. And you can't stand it, because this isn't how it's supposed to be. 

   “Tell me what you want,” he demands, leaning down to smell your neck, his nose brushing against your skin and giving you goosebumps. 

   “It’s neither appropriate nor allowed,” you hush, and he chuckles. 

   "Since when do you care about any of that? You make the rules on this side of the island, don't you, princess?” 

   You blame it on the tequila when your lips find his. You blame it on the daiquiri when he leads you into the cold supply closet, without pulling out of your kiss. You would blame it on the coke, when he bunches your dress up and sinks into you; but you didn't have any coke that night. 

   “Fuck, you're so wet for me, baby,” JJ groans, he sat you down on a lower shelf, and you do your best to hold onto the metal structure that is pressing into your back. 

   “Shut up and kiss me, asshole,” you gasp, and he does just that. His kisses are wet and sloppy, just like his fast thrusts. But you can't stop kissing him, not only because it feels like heaven and hell combined. But mainly because you know you'd be screaming by the way his cock keeps kissing your cervix. 

   “You're so good at taking it, princess. Fuck, you feel so good,” JJ moans, and you can't help but feel pride in how much he seems to love it. 

   “Look at it,” you demand, and he dips his head, focusing on where you are connected. Your slip is tucked to the side, but it's ruined anyway, it has been from the moment on that he started to flirt with you. 

   “What does that say,” JJ asks, his thumb rubbing over your tattoo, making you smirk. 

   “Eat me, Maybank. It says, eat me,” you moan, and he grins. 

   “Next time, princess,” he growls and starts rubbing your clit in harsh circles. You don't understand how he does it, but he has you moaning even louder, and clenching around his cock in the matter of minutes. The band in your stomach is ready to burst, and you don't think you've felt this good ever before. It feels like he's made for you, but you know that can't be the case. 

   “Come for me, pretty girl. Soak my dick,” JJ breathes into your ear, and as soon as you come undone, he pulls his hand from your clit and shoves his fingers down your throat to shut you up. 

   You feel afloat and completely dazed when he pulls his fingers out and clasps his hand over your mouth. 

   “Shh, quiet,” JJ whispers, and you hear footsteps outside the closet. If someone finds you, you're screwed. 

   “No, she's not down here either. Check upstairs again, man,” Rafe's annoyed voice carries through the door, and you stare at JJ. You're not scared of what might happen to you if Rafe found out, but more so that he'd finally snap and actually hurt JJ like he has threatened so many times before. 

   Rafe is still outside the door when JJ decides to start fucking you again, and your eyes roll back uncontrollably. He knows how badly you want to make a sound for him, but you can't let yourself. 

   As soon as his footsteps carry Rafe back upstairs, you let out a loud groan, pulling JJ into a kiss and purposely squeezing his dick just to prove to him that you're the one in charge. And when his hips stutter, and he spills out inside of you, you don't even mind it. You like the feeling, especially when he keeps fucking it into you, muttering incoherently about how good he fucked you. 

   “Do you always praise yourself after?” you ask him after having pulled your dress back down. 

   “Do you always cheat on your boyfriend with Pogues?” he smirks, and you push him back against the shelf. 

   “If anyone finds out about this, you are dead, you understand? Either you shut up, and hope for a second time, or I can ruin your life. I don't need Rafe to do it for me, I can do it all by myself. Do you understand?” You poke into his chest and he nods. 

   “Good,” you take a step back again, and he grabs for your chin, pulling you close again. 

   “I have one question, princess. Has he ever fucked you raw?” 

   “I don't trust him enough for that,” you reply, and JJ snorts. 

   “Why'd you let me, then?” 

   “You don't sleep around as much as you pride yourself, Maybank. I mean, you're not bad, but- Well, it all comes down to the circles you run in and the ones you don't,” you give him a mean smile and open the door to go look for a bathroom. 

   “How do you plan on not letting him find out if he never-” 

   “I told you, he does what I say. If I say no, he's not getting any,” you tell him and turn a corner towards the bathroom. 

   “You really got him wrapped around your finger,” JJ laughs. 

   “You too,” you grin before sitting down to pee, you don't care that he is standing right next to you. 

   “Didn't you literally call Cally R. disgusting for insinuating that she doesn't mind peeing in her boyfriend's presence?” JJ laughs. 

   “First of all,” you say while finishing up and standing. “Cally R. is a lying slut, the only reason why she keeps having to piss in front of her boyfriend is because she can't get rid of her std. And why doesn't it go away? Well, because little miss piss queen keeps on fucking Tyler Folly on the side. Calling her disgusting was the kindest thing I could do to her.” 

   “And the second reason?” JJ cocks his brow up. 

   “You're not my boyfriend, Maybank. And getting rid of your shit inside me, is kinda necessary unless you want me ending up like Cally,” you give him a threatening smile, and he holds his hands up in defense. “Good.” 

   “I'm just wondering if it's not hypocritical, with the whole fucking on the side and all,” he mumbles before wetting a towel and trying to remove the red lipstick marks from his face. 

   “I don't claim to love my boyfriend, and Rafe never claimed to love me. He thinks we have an open relationship on his side. I don't see why it can't be open on both,” you shrug and pull the lipstick from your bra to reapply it. 

   “Was I- was I better?” JJ mumbles, rubbing his hand over the nape of his neck. 

   “Could you choose between your two favorite types of food?” you ask, and he starts to grin. 

   “You know, that's a weird metaphor.” 

   “Simile,” you correct him, and he exhales a laugh. 

   “You're a real smartass, y/l/n.” 

   “And you can be glad you're pretty.” 

   “Pretty enough to fuck your brains out,” JJ turns you towards him and leans in, his lips ghosting yours and when he pulls back you exhale a breath you didn't realize you were holding. “See,” he smirks. 

   “If you want to do it again you can't fuck around, and most importantly you won't tell a soul. But then again, who would even believe you,” you scoff and turn around to leave, taking the stairs and vanishing in the crowd before anyone can notice where you’ve come from. 

   “Where were you? I was looking all over,” Rafe sounds concerned and hugs you, out of courtesy, surely. Rafe rarely hugs you unless you ask for it, or the social obligations call for it. 

   “Just here and there, I went upstairs and forgot why. I'm sorry, babe,” you tell him, and he lets it go. 

   “Hey, y/n, wanna play a game with us?” Topper asks, and you turn to look at the group of people gathered, your eyes get stuck on JJ for just a second before they snap back to Top. 

   “Sure,” you smile and push Rafe into a chair, sitting down sideways on his lap. 

   It's a dumb drinking game, just like always. It stays rather boring until Topper's new girlfriend gets to speak, and you instantly regret your choice to take part. 

   “Never have I ever had sex with someone in this room,” she giggles and falls back down into Top before they each take a sip of their drinks. 

   You take a sip, focusing on Rafe, but Rafe is staring right across from where the two of you are sitting. 

   “Why does Maybank keep staring at you,” he whispers in your ear, and you shrug. 

   “He's a creep, you know that, babe,” you try to calm your boyfriend down, but you know it's not gonna help much. 

   “Never have I ever cheated,” JJ says and takes a drink, but the chatter goes mute as soon as the words leave him. “I thought we were being honest, guys. God, you guys really are some Kooks,” he laughs and stands up to leave. His eyes are yet again fixed on you, but this time you can't force yourself to look away. 

   “Maybe cheating is just a Pogue quality,” you say, and a few silent mumbles seem to agree with your lie. 

   “You must know all about that, princess,” JJ smirks and tips his non-existent cap to you before turning and walking away, out of the house and into the darkness. 

   “He’s so weird,” Topper's girlfriend lets out a disgusted grunt. 

   “Was he even invited?” Topper asks and I roll my eyes. 

   “They don't check invitations at the entrance, stupid,” you laugh it off.

   “He probably stole something,” someone out of the crowd suggests, and you stand up in a light fit of rage, before you realize that you can't act on it. 

   “What would he steal from here? Cheap candles from Target?” you scoff and walk off. “Rafe!” you call out, and he takes a moment before he meets you outside by the car. 

   “I didn't wanna go home yet,” he complains. 

   “And? You have to drive me home. After that, you can do whatever the fuck you want,” you scoff at him, crossing your arms in front of your chest. 

   “What's up with you?” he snorts, opening the door for you and letting you get in. 

   “I'm tired and annoyed by these people who think they're better than anyone else, just because their dad's play golf and fuck their secretaries,” you mutter, and he stops asking, dropping you off at your house and driving off as soon as you are inside. 

   Weeks go by in which you don't even see a glimpse of JJ. You manage to push the memory so far back into your brain that you don't even dream of it, well, not as often. 

   And when Rafe fucks you, it's good, it's great, but you don't feel as complete after as you had with JJ. 

   “Best pussy in the fucking world,” Rafe groans as he pounds into you from behind. Your face is pressed into the duvet and your ass is high up in the air. He’s been stretching you out for what feels like hours. It’s really good, he hits every single spot inside of you perfectly, but you can't get yourself to come. 

   “Would be so much better without it, baby,” Rafe rasps, and you're not really listening, just nodding and groaning in response to whatever he's saying. 

   And before you can actually register what is happening, he has pulled out and slammed into you again, but it feels different. You can feel him more clearly, every single vein on his thick cock, the soft tip that keeps nudging your cervix as he thrusts deeper. 

   “Fuck, I love you. I love this pussy so much,” Rafe moans, and without a single warning he comes inside you, filling you up and clouding your mind. You gasp, close to an orgasm but not yet there and if he'd just- but he pulls out and you all you can feel is used. 

   “Shit, did you not,” he pulls you into him, having fallen into the sheets by your side, but you put on a smile. 

   “It's okay. Next time,” you tell him and get up to clean yourself up. You curse yourself for losing yourself in your thoughts about JJ instead of paying attention to what your boyfriend said to you. And now you have two guys thinking they can fuck you over anyway they want.

   “Are you okay?” Rafe asks as you leave the bathroom wrapped in your robe. 

   “Yeah, just next time, maybe warn me beforehand. Probably would've been better if we had both finished,” you say and roll your eyes while your back is turned to him. 

   “Why are you getting dressed?” 

   “I have to buy q tips, we don't have any left,” you lie and he scoffs. 

   “You could just ask the help to go buy some, and I could make it up to you. Come on, baby,” he slaps the empty bed to his left, but you shake your head. 

   “I just need some air, all right.” 

   “Fine. But text me so I know you're okay,” he sighs and gets up to take a shower. 

   You basically run out of the house, jumping in your car and driving off towards the Cut before you realize you don't even know where to go. 

   You pull out your phone and scroll down a long list of contacts before you find his number, saved under three Xs to remind you to never text him, but here you are, doing just that. 

   “Where are you?” you type out and hit send, a second later a text appears on your screen. 

“why?” 

   “Tattoo” is all you say, but the three small dots stay for a while and then they vanish. You are about to curse him out when a text pops up. 

“you know the Château?”

   “Routledge?”

“yes”

   You put your phone away and start driving again. Maybe you'd have to thank Topper's weird obsession with Sarah for knowing where the house is, but you really can't. 

   As soon as you arrive, you kill the engine and jump out of your jeep, stomping towards the porch. 

   “What the fuck are you doing here?” Kiara sneers at you, but you don't pay her any attention. You grab JJ's hand and drag him into the house. 

   “That's the wrong way,” he chuckles and holds you back from going deeper into the house, pulling you to the side and into a small bedroom. 

   “Tell me what's wrong,” he asks, wanting to hold onto you, but you brush him off. 

   “He said he loved me,” you hiss at JJ even though it's not his fault, nor can he do anything about it. 

   “And that's bad?” he raises his eyebrows at you and you huff. 

   “Yes. Yes, it is. You don't fuck someone, not let them fucking finish and then tell them you love them,” you reply quietly, not wanting his friends to be able to hear it all. 

   “I see. I can help with one of those,” JJ smirks and pulls you into a kiss. A kiss that makes you forget why you even came over. With as much as a snip of his finger, he has erased all the bad thoughts and feelings inside of you, replacing them with warmth and desire. 

   “They didn't believe me,” he whispers against your lips before bringing them into another kiss. You pull on his shirt, and he takes it off. 

   “Told you they wouldn't,” you smile and take your own shirt off before starting to fumble with his shorts. 

   “Now they have to,” JJ chuckles and pushes his pants down, leaving the boxers on. 

   He pushes you onto the bed, kissing you all over, especially focusing on your tits, and you nearly come just from that. His skilled tongue toys with your nipple while his hand squeezes the other breast mercilessly. 

   “You have the best tits, baby,” JJ moans against your skin, squeezing them another time before trailing his lips down the valley of your breasts and over your stomach to the hem of your jeans shorts. 

   “Are you sure?” he asks while looking up at you, but the way he's lying between your legs is godly. His unruly hair is hanging into his face, his lips slightly parted in a mischievous smile. 

   “I'll go ask one of the others if you don't want to,” you tease him, and he bites your hips.

   “Don't ever suggest that shit again, princess.” 

   “Noted, but only if your tongue’s as good as your dick,” you smirk. 

   JJ takes his time taking off your shorts, teasing you and edging you on, and you want to drown in the feelings he can so easily conjure in you. 

   “You smell different,” he notes, and presses his nose against your slip. “I'm not gonna do this when you smell like him.” 

   “I told you,” you sit up on your elbows and look at his disgusted face. 

   “You didn't say he fucked you raw. That's different, and you know it,” JJ complains and sits back up. 

   “I don't see the problem. It's an easy fix,” you shrug and pull him closer by his neck. Your lips press against his until you have him lying underneath you. 

   “See, easy,” you grin down at him, pulling his boxers down just enough to let his hard cock spring free. 

   “Aren't you pretty,” you whisper to his pink tip, placing a kiss on it and tasting his salty precum. 

   “If you do that again, I'm busting a nut. You gotta warn a guy,” JJ laughs nervously. 

   “Cute,” you giggle and lift yourself up, pulling your slip to the side and brushing his throbbing tip through your aching slit. You let out a sigh of relief as you sink down on him. The familiarity makes you feel better instantly. 

   Fucking JJ is easy, it's messy, it's freeing. 

   You don't mind that he can't keep himself from coming when you do, because he's ready instantly as if it never happened. 

   You claw at his chest while you bounce on him, screaming of pleasure and not caring who can hear you. Your pussy sounds obscenely wet, and can feel the mix of your many releases spill out of you and onto him. But JJ doesn't care as long as you keep fucking yourself with his dick, he doesn't even mind having to take over when you get a cramp in your leg. 

   He's moaning and cursing worse than you, calling you all kinds of dirty things, but mostly he's showering you with compliments, which turns you on even more than you could have ever imagined. 

   And when he finally pulls out, your pussy is still clenching, pushing out all of his and your cum. 

   “Would you look at that, princess,” he huffs, “we should definitely not clean you up and send you back home just like that, show him who's actually better at fucking this pretty pussy.” JJ takes two fingers to push his cum back into you. 

   “J, please,” you beg him to stop. You are overstimulated and sore, so sore you feel like you might not be able to walk properly the next few days. 

   “Oh, but we haven't even done what you promised me, princess. You wouldn't let a poor guy starve, would you?” JJ gives you a pout and moves back to kiss your swollen cunt. A jolt goes through your body as he does it another time. 

   “You taste so sweet, baby,” he moans into you, his hands massaging your thighs; tongue dipping into your cunt and nose brushing against your clit. 

   You moan and mewl as he slowly kisses and licks you to your orgasm, you can't even remember how many you've had that day, but what you do know is that the last one is the best one. 

   “Where'd you learn to use your tongue like that?” you ask him out of breath when he's lying next to you. 

   “Natural talent, y/l/n,” JJ boasts and turns his head to kiss you, twisting his tongue with yours and then pulling you closer. His hand is harshly gripping your thigh, pulling your leg over his own; while your own hands are entangled in his hair. There's a sense of security in the way he kisses you, like you know he won't leave even if you'd tell him to. 

   “JJ-” you try to pull away, but his lips keep on chasing yours, even when you try to get his attention by biting him. So, you pull on his hair, holding his head in place and making him whine with it. 

   “S’unfair,” he murmurs. 

   “I have to go home, it's late,” you remind him. 

   “You could stay, I could show you how much better I am at morning sex,” JJ tries to convince you, but you know it's impossible. 

   You let go of his head and twirl a strand of his hair in between your fingers. “It's a charming proposal, but you know I can't. He'll come looking for me, and we don't want that to happen, do we?” 

   “I’ll let you go if you answer me one question.” 

   You roll your eyes at his antics, but agree to it anyway. “Deal, dumbass,” you smile.

   “Why’d you text me?” JJ whispers, and you sigh, turning around to look at the ceiling. 

   “I don't know,” you lie. 

   “I think you do, you're just lying to yourself if you say anything else. Because I wouldn't have told you to come by if I didn't feel the same,” he admits and nuzzles his face into your neck. 

   “It's a polar opposite. And I never thought- It's difficult to know you want a specific thing when you never had it, and once it’s there, it's hard to forget about it. And he won't give me that, I know it,” you explain quietly and JJ kisses your neck in response. 

   “I would never even consider not letting you come, baby,” he hushes against your skin, and it gives you goosebumps all over. It's cozy and loving in a way, and it might just scare the life out of you once you realize that you crave this affection he's giving you. 

   “I have to go,” you press out and jump up, leaving JJ groaning as he runs his hands over his face. You find your clothes pretty quickly and put them back on, while he stays in bed, lying there looking like a Greek god. 

   “You look severely fuck out. I like it,” he grins, his head propped up on his hand. 

   “Walk of shame material?” 

   “Nah, nothing to be ashamed of.” 

   “You know that's not what I meant,” you sigh and leave the room to go look for the bathroom. 

   “Left,” JJ calls out, and you turn left, towards the end of the hallway and enter the small bathroom. You don't understand how they can live in such a narrow space, but you know mentioning it would not end well. 

   Your curls are standing up in every possible direction and your eyes look extremely tired. 

   “See, not bad at all,” JJ smirks, leaning in the doorway of the bathroom. 

   “Do you have a hair tie or something?” you ask, and he steps behind you and pulls a drawer open. You pick out a simple black hair tie that could easily pass as one of your own, and wind your hair into a loose knot. 

   “Tell me again why I should let you go back to that asshole?” JJ asks, laying his chin on your shoulder. 

   “One, because he's not an asshole, and two, because he's gonna kill you. I don't want to see you dead, you're really good at what you do,” you say while looking at him through the mirror, and the smile on his face gets deeper as you speak. 

   “The secret side piece,” JJ flashes his eyebrows at you, and you can't stop the light chuckle that leaves you. Charming and sweet and all you should ever want and need-

   “I really have to go now,” you remind yourself, and he lets go of you. 

   When you walk out onto the porch, your eyes meet Sarah's and your heart stops, but you can't let yourself get caught up in it. You know, she hasn't spoken to Rafe in a whole year. She surely won't break that silence just to tell on you. 

   Your feet quickly move you towards your car, but before you can open your door, you are harshly turned around and pushed against the metal. 

   JJ kisses you so hard, you wish you could go back inside and do it all over again. His hand is holding onto your neck while the other is gripping your waist. It feels like the best kiss in your entire life, and it awakes something inside of you that you had long thought dead. The tiny flutter in your stomach is as faint as a gust of wind in spring, but you know it's there, and you know it'll just complicate everything else with it.

   When he pulls away, he does it slowly, leaving an abundance of small, soft kisses on your lips before running his thumb over them. 

   “She won't tell. None of them will, I promise,” he whispers and you nod, believing him. 

   “You should go. Didn't know kissing alone could turn a guy on like that.” You smirk innocently as your hand traces over his erection, and he can't even hide it because he hadn't thought about putting on anything more than underwear. 

   “That's all you,” JJ whispers and kisses you one last time. “Text me,” he says before stepping back and letting you get into your car. 

   As you drive off, you can see him flipping off his friends before going inside; and then the house, and all of them with it, vanish as you make your way back home. 

   “Where were you?” Rafe bludgeons as soon as you get through the door. 

   “Out. You don't need to know everything, you know?” you snap at him. 

   “You didn't text and were gone for hours, y/n.” 

   “Shit, you sound more like my parents then my parents ever did,” you laugh and make your way into the kitchen, pouring yourself a glass of orange juice and downing it in one go. 

   “Excuse me for giving a fuck,” Rafe barks, and you roll your eyes. 

   “If you hadn't been selfish, like fucking always, I wouldn't have walked out.” 

   “I wanted to make it up to you. You left!” he counters and you gulp hard. 

   “Tell me what you would've done. Something that puts me first for a change or not?” Your blood is boiling and there is nothing that can stop your fit of rage. It was easier to look past Rafe's selfish tendencies when you didn't know any better, but now that you do, you can't help but get annoyed at him for it. 

   “Where's this coming from now?” he laughs, pacing along the room. 

   “God, why can't you fucking open your eyes! You know, sometimes I fake it just so it's over quicker,” you spit out, but he knows it's a lie, it's the one thing you promised each other to never lie about. 

   “You never tell me what you want either,” Rafe says, and you hate that it's true. 

   “Would you do it if I did?” 

   “I can try,” he raises his shoulders in what feels like defeat to you, but you can't be sure. 

   “Good,” you glare, but you know it's unnecessary. 

   “Now?” he asks, somewhat hopeful, but you shake your head. 

   “Maybe tomorrow, or whenever. I'm tired right now,” you sigh and make your way upstairs to take a bath. 

   The hot water is soaking your body, and you close your eyes and let it play out again. How JJ kept kissing you as he fucked you senseless, how his praises worked way better for you than Rafe's degradations. How he kept looking up at you with his head buried between your legs. 

   Your hand travels down between your legs, rubbing soft circles on your clit, and it's not enough. Your fingers plunge into your sore pussy, curling perfectly, but it's not enough. You can't reach, and it frustrates you. 

   You step out of the tub, dripping wet, as you make your way into the bedroom, and Rafe doesn't complain when you straddle him. And he complains even less, you start to fuck yourself with his dick. It's not something you’ve ever done with him, but he wants to be better for you, and he doesn't mind as long as he gets to fuck you one way or the other. 

   “Tell me how much you want me,” you moan softly while bouncing on his huge cock. The light stinging feeling his size always causes you just adds to your pleasure. 

   “You're so fucking hot, fucking me like the slut you are,” Rafe rasps, holding onto your hips. 

   “No, something nice. Tell me something nice.” You shake your head but keep going anyway. 

   “Uhm, okay… You're fucking me so well, baby,” Rafe says, but his eyebrows are furrowed until you moan louder. 

   “Yes, more.” 

   “I love your tight pussy, baby,” he groans, and you fall down on top of him, kissing him, but it doesn't feel at all like you hoped. He tastes like whiskey, but you crave the mix of weed and beer. Yet, all of your thoughts about it fly out the window when he stops your hips and starts pounding into you from below. 

   “Faster,” you gasp into him, biting his lip and digging your nails into his shoulders. It's mind-bending, they way he fucks you and his uncontrollable noises turn you on even more. Rafe grunts and moans like you've not heard it before, and you wish you made him try it earlier. 

   “Fuck, baby, tell me you're close,” Rafe moans, and you press your face against his shoulder, feeling the band inside you tighten. 

   “So close, babe, don't stop,” you cry out and snake a hand down to your clit rubbing harshly and suddenly JJ's words echo in your mind. 

   “come for me, y/n. Be a good girl and let go.”

   You scream when your orgasm rips through you, and Rafe follows just a second later, pushing in deeper and painting your walls in his pretty white. 

   “Keep going, just a bit,” you instruct him, and he fucks his cum into you with a few more thrusts until you tell him to stop again. 

   “That was probably the best sex we ever had,” you sigh, still not ready to get up and have him leave you. 

   “Definitely top ten,” Rafe pants and runs his hand over your back. 

   “No, definitely the best,” you argue with a smile, and he caves. 

   “All right, the best.” 

   After having cleaned up, you're back in bed, and cuddled into his side, your head resting on his chest. 

   “Why didn't you tell me all that earlier? We could've done this already,” he whispers, and you don't know how to come up with a good lie. 

   “I don't know. Maybe I hoped you'd figure it out on your own one day.” 

   “It's very different from what we usually do,” Rafe mumbles, brushing over your hair. 

   “I like how you fuck me, but sometimes I need something for me. I need control too,” you whisper, and he kisses your head. 

   “We can do that.” 

   “Good.” 

   “I love you,” Rafe sighs, and you can hear his breathing slow down as he falls asleep. 

   Your dreams are haunted by JJ, always, and you wish you could turn it off. Sometimes Rafe gets to him, other times you see yourself living the Pogue life, as if that has ever been something you'd even do as much as consider. But tonight it's different from any other time. 

   You are at home, Rafe is sitting at the kitchen island, and JJ is lying on the couch. They are both aware of each other and not actively trying to murder one another. The whole scene makes you incredibly suspicious, but it just gets worse when two blonde children come running in. 

   “Dad!” one of them yells, and both JJ and Rafe pick up their heads. 

   “What's up?” Rafe asks and gets up from his seat, giving you a loving smile before leaning down to the child and talking to it. 

   “Well, your friends are pretty fucking stupid for not getting it,” Rafe tells the child, and JJ snorts. 

   “Yeah, what's not to get? My wife has another guy, and we play daddy roulette every single time.” 

   “Daddy roulette?” you ask and furrow your brows at the two. 

   “You said it's better to not know. Removes the thing for fighting or whatever,” JJ explains. 

   “This one, definitely mine,” Rafe points at your stomach, and you look down at yourself to see yourself severely pregnant. Your belly is bigger than you'd ever imagined, and it feels even worse. 

   “Why is it so big?” Your heart starts racing, and you feel like you're about to fall over. 

   “That's because we're having twins. You got a Maybank and a Cameron in there, baby, just like you love it,” JJ grins and your vision goes blurry. 

   “Y/n, will you please stop screaming? I was trying to sleep!” Rafe groans after shaking you awake. 

   “Sorry,” you mumble and turn away from him. 

   “Bad dream or what?” he asks. 

   “You don't have to pretend to care,” you whisper, and he snakes his arm around your waist, pulling you flush to his chest. 

   “I do care, but I also really need to sleep, baby,” he mumbles and kisses your neck a single time. 

   “We should just sleep,” you mutter, and this time you are allowed to get your few hours of dreamless sleep instead of being haunted by your mistakes. 

   Weeks turn into months, and one hookup every other week turns to some every other day. 

   The more Rafe tries to focus more on you, the more you seem to crave JJ and the lightness of what you have with him. Like the quick fucks in the Country Club restroom, or the “business meetings” you tell Rafe about. After all, you really don't have a choice, because where Rafe is still reluctant to go down on you, JJ is offering it every single time, even when you are really not capable of coming another time. 

   You know it would be technically easy to break up with Rafe, but you can't. You promised your late father to marry a good man, someone from a good family. And Rafe is exactly what your dad had in mind. 

   And even if that wasn't the case, you still can't, or just don't want to, really. You like that every girl on the island seems to want what you have, especially with both boys on your leash. You like that people are scared of you, because they know Rafe does what you tell him to, and not because he’s scared. No, he does it because he knows it's the best way to live his life. What most people don't know is that although still rich, the Camerons suffered a dent in their savings, and not a small one. Yet, you are secured by a long line of rich assholes. Old money. More than you can ever spend in a lifetime. Which just means that Rafe doesn't have the faintest idea why he should ever leave you. You are his perfect package deal. 

“boat day?” The text from JJ rips you out of your thoughts, and you praise the fact that Rafe has the day packed with meetings. 

   “sure” you reply quickly and get back to doing your hair. 

“I should come pick you up” 

   “no, you really shouldn't.” You shake your head at his dangerously stupid idea. The boat thing is after all already risky, you don't need to up the chances of anybody finding out. “Will be there in 30.”

   “What the fuck is she doing here?” Kiara scoffs as soon as you get out of your car. 

   “I invited her,” JJ shrugs as if it's nothing special and keeps walking towards the pier. 

   “You shouldn't get to invite anyone, especially not the Kook bitch who keeps fucking you on the side to get back at her even worse Kook boyfriend,” Kiara complains.

   “I'm not getting back at anyone,” you smile at her, knowing how much it must enrage her that you keep your cool and calm exterior. 

   “Just, please be nice, Kie,” JJ yells from afar and you hide your grin. 

   “John B!” Kiara hollers and walks back into the house, while you keep standing there, leaning against your car.

   As soon as JJ comes back, they all gather on the porch, discussing the matter of your attendance. 

   “You know I can hear you, right?” you say loudly after Kiara had called you a slut the third time in a row.

   “Then why are you still here?” she snaps at you. 

   You stroll towards the steps that lead up the porch and walk to where they are standing. It's not that you are particularly happy that they are all there too, but you at least have the decency to be nice to them, if not for anything but JJ’s sake. 

   “I'm interested in what your issue is here,” you ask, and Sarah scoffs. 

   “Maybe that you're a horrible person. Using JJ? Cheating on my brother?” 

   “Oh, a horse can only be that high,” you smile at her. 

   JJ tugs on your hand and makes you look at him. “You said you'd be nice.” 

   “I am nice. I'm not the one calling people slut and whore and what else y'all can come up with for me. But I'm not gonna stand here and hear these insults if they can't even take one back. And for the record that wasn't an insult, it was the truth and y'all know it,” you say and John B runs his hands through his hair, visibly on edge. 

   “Are you kidding me? You literally insult us all the fucking time,” Kiara spits at you, and you can't help the tiny laugh that escapes you. 

   “I don't insult Pogues, you guys have it hard enough as is, but… you're not a Pogue, Carrera. I guess that means you're fair game, because that one,” you point at Sarah, “is basically family, as much as I hate to say it, and you don't go against your own.” 

   “You’re not my family. You'll never be,” Sarah shakes her head. 

   “Okay,” you roll your eyes at her. 

   “Can we just-” JJ tries to get control of the conversation, but Kiara stops him. 

   “No, we can't. If she's here, I'm leaving.” 

   “Y'all are the worst fucking friends in the world,” you laugh and take a step back, ready to leave. “Incredible.” You turn around and walk back to your car, JJ right behind you. 

   “Don't leave, please,” he asks, and you stop in your tracks, turning around on the dirt and looking straight at him. 

   “I tried, you can't tell me to do more than that. I'm not gonna be called a whore and slut every five fucking minutes. It's appalling how your friends can't even pretend to like me for a few hours, but I'm supposed to do so while also being insulted. I'm not doing that. I'm sorry.”

   “I'll make it up to you, just don't go,” he begs and you shake your head.

   “No.”

   “What do you mean no?” 

   “I mean, no, because you have nothing to make up to me. They are the ones constantly fucking up. Last time, you told them beforehand, and suddenly they all had different plans. They hate me,” you tell him, but he doesn't seem to want to hear it. 

   “Can we just try and-” 

   “I did try. Don't force me to do this, JJ. I can't do this if they can't even manage to not call me names,” you say quietly, and he takes your face in his hands, warm and calloused. 

   “Will you wait just another few minutes and if I can't fix it, we will go to my place. Sound all right?” His voice is low and raspy, and it's making you wet, just a little bit. 

   “You never invited me to your house before,” you whisper, blushing and pressing your thighs together to try to get rid of the growing desire between them.

   “It's an equally favorable outcome to the other thing, then?” 

   “More favorable to me,” you smile and lean up to peck his lips. “Use that magical charm of yours,” you whisper and push him back to go talk to his friends. 

   Half an hour later you're all sitting on the small boat somewhere in the marsh. 

   “You want a beer?” JJ asks and hands you a can. “You know how to shotgun, right?” 

   “I can pretend I don't so you can show me,” you smile at him and he laughs. 

   “That would be cheating.”

   You grin at him before taking out your keys, plunging a hole in the can and chugging it in a matter of seconds. 

   “Impressive,” JJ notes before shotgunning his own can and dripping some beer on his sun kissed skin. You don't even think about it when you lean in and kiss the droplets away. Your kisses trail upwards, along his neck until they connect to his mouth, and he kisses you like his life depends on it. His hands come up to hold your face, while yours are in his neck, twirling the hair at the nape of it. 

   “I should shotgun a few more if this is how it's gonna be,” JJ smirks, his forehead leaning against yours. 

   You blink slowly, pulling your bottom lip between your teeth and giving him a small nod. “M-hmm,” you hum, and he places another kiss on your lips. 

   “Should we, uh, play a game or?” Pope suggests, and you turn to shift your focus away from JJ and towards the people he calls his friends. 

   “What type of game?” you ask with a genuine interest. 

   “Truth or dare,” Kiara suggests with a mean smile on her face. 

   “Who starts?” you ask and give her a polite smile, serving its intended purpose when she rolls her eyes. 

   “Truth or dare, princess,” JJ asks and turns your head towards him with a simple nudge of his finger. 

   “Truth,” you whisper. 

   “Why did you come when I asked?” 

   “Because I like you,” you gaze into his blue eyes, and he smiles, “for more than the incredible sex also. It's actually pretty fun with you.” 

   “Definite win on my end,” he whispers. 

   “Truth or dare… John B,” you say before turning your head to look at him. He gives you a confused look, his eyes jumping between JJ and you. 

   “Truth,” he shrugs. 

   “Do you actually hate me, or do you just hate me because your girlfriend hates me?” Your smile is sugar sweet, but the glare you give Sarah could definitely make milk curdle. 

   “I mean, you're a Kook and I don't understand what this is,” he gestures at JJ and you. “But, I guess, I don't know you enough to hate you or like you.” 

   His answer genuinely surprises you because you didn't think he'd be honest and not just say the thing Sarah wanted to hear. 

   The game goes back and forth with a few dares and a few harmless truths in between, until it's Sarah's turn, and she glares at you as if she wants to actually kill you. 

   “Truth or Dare, y/l/n?” 

   “Dare,” you reply quickly, and her mean smile grows wider. 

   “Call Rafe and tell him where you are,” she demands.

   “It's 2:30pm, he's in a meeting. I'm not gonna call him during a meeting just because of a stupid game,” you scoff and laugh at her stupid dare. 

   “How do you know he's in a meeting right this second?” she hits back at you, and you can't help but laugh even more, but you catch yourself and answer a bit more seriously.

   “I have his schedule memorized. That's what you do when you're a good girlfriend.” 

   “A good girlfriend wouldn't cheat!” she screams at you.

   “You think he doesn't? That's a pretty narrow-minded way to look at it, sis.” You know the new nickname has her boiling, and the little sadistic part of your brain loves to see it. “And you don't get to talk about cheating, everyone is aware of your timeline errors.” 

   “I never loved Topper,” she defends herself, as if it makes her morally superior to you.

   “And I don't love Rafe, but you at least had a fucking choice because your shitty life has never been bound to you marrying whoever your parents pick, so you ‘get to’ inherent what is rightfully yours anyway. So don't fucking tell me what to do with my life, because everyone else has always done it too, and they had more legitimacy for it,” you yell at her, unintentionally spilling more of your secrets than you initially intended to, and they all go quiet. The only thing you can hear after you're done is a few frogs, the birds close by, the waves crashing against the boat and your heart pounding in your chest.

   JJ pulls you in closer and hugs you while placing soft, calming kisses on your neck. 

   “I wanna go home,” you whisper to him, tired of having to pretend, even if it has only been an hour. 

   “Let me talk to them. I promise it's gonna get better,” he says and gets up. 

   There's no doubt in your mind that it won't. Yet you don't understand why you keep giving him, and with it, them, one chance after the other, when you wouldn't usually give anyone even a second chance. You look out onto the water, your legs propped up, arms around them and your head lying on your knees. You think back to the last night you had with your dad, before he died in a horrible car crash. T-boned by a drunk driver who didn't see the red light. You think about how you tried to convince him to change his mind, that you could run the company without a man by your side, that you were good enough. But all your pleas fell to deaf ears. And your mom isn't any better. She decides to stay away, vacating in Palm Beach and only coming home every other month to make sure you are still alive. She deals with grief like that. By sunbathing and drinking and pretending like everything is fine and perfect and not at all in shambles. 

   Instead, you decided to close off your heart, and that worked for nearly two years until JJ decided to charm his way into it. You don't like it, the thought of feeling all this pain again. Or worse, to know once you let yourself love, the pain will be inevitable. People leave one way or the other, that's how life has always been and how it always will be. 

   “Hey,” John B rips you out of your head, and you don't even turn your head to look at him as he sits down next to you. 

   “What do you want?” you say in the meanest way you can conjure, but it still sounds pathetic. 

   “I'm sorry about your dad, I know he died a few years back. I, uhm, I just wanted to say I understand how hard it can be to live up to their expectations, especially after they-” 

   “I don't need your pity, Routledge,” you snap and look at him. “You don't know anything about me. You don't have to pretend to care.” 

   “I was just trying to help,” he apologizes and gets up again. 

   Your mind wanders back to the night, to the pain. It's scarily easy to revisit that memory. Seeing yourself standing over the table in the morgue, having to identify that, “yes, that's my dad,” because your mother broke down as soon as the message came through. You were keeping yourself together for her, for everyone around you who came with their condolences and expected a consolation prize for caring the bare minimum. You remember taking the ring from his cold, stiff finger. You remember having to pick out the casket, the suit, the food, where and when and how and- 

   You feel like your lungs are empty, like you stopped breathing air, but pain and desperation instead. Tears are building in your eyes. You can't blink, can't let them run, can't let anyone see you cry, especially not these people. The only one who has gotten to see you cry ever, apart from your parents, is Rafe. And maybe you are aware that you can't leave him because he knows the part of you that you try so hard to keep hidden. Because he was the only one caring for you when everyone else was solely relying on you. 

   And now you are hurting him, in a way you never thought you would, but you can't help it, you're too deep in it now. You need to tell him, needed to two months ago, but you hadn't, because you are scared of breaking his heart. Because you know telling him might mean losing the one good and secure thing you have going for yourself.

   Maybe you never considered it love, because it doesn't look like the love from the movies and books you basically inhaled in your pre-teens. Maybe you do have a childish outlook on love after all, because whatever connects you and Rafe goes deeper than that. 

   “You okay?” JJ asks, standing over you, and you muster a faint smile for him. 

   “I just really wanna go home now, I'm sorry,” you apologize for it, although you know you're not the only one at fault for it. You're soft for him, because he needs it, because you need it in a way. But it's so different from Rafe and you don't know if you can survive without either of them. If you could, you'd put them in a blender and get the perfect boyfriend out of it. But life isn't a fairy tale.

   “It's okay,” he smiles and kisses your forehead before turning to the steering wheel and starting the engine. 

   As soon as you're back at the Château, you get off the boat and basically run towards your car. If not for JJ, you wouldn't even think twice about never coming back. But this was his second home, his happy place. 

   “Hey, y/n, wait a sec,” JJ calls after you and you stop to turn around. 

   “I don't care if they like me, J, but I'm not gonna be able to do this again. Not like this. I really want to, for you, but if they can't bring up the same amount of- They need to try too, all of them, and not when I accidentally tell them my whole life story so they can pity me. I'm not gonna do it that way,” you say softly, and he nods. 

   “I understand. Will you text me that you got home safe? Please,” he whispers and you nod. There's a moment of silence, insecure and heavy, as if he doesn't know what to do, so you do the only thing you can think of to stop the awkward moment from prolonging. In a quick motion, you lean up and kiss his cheek. 

   As soon as you come home, you text him a quick “am home” and turn back to wallowing in your sadness. 

   It takes Rafe another two hours to get home and as soon as he walks in, you jump into his arms, trying to find the little security you knew you could always hold onto. 

   “Hey, baby, what's up? Huh? Missed me that much?” Rafe asks with a light chuckle while holding you up, with one arm around your waist and the other holding onto his bag. 

   “Missed you,” you mumble into him, not wanting to actually tell him why you are feeling down, but you know you need to. Soon. Very soon.

   He puts down his bag and carries you into the kitchen, sitting you down on the island and taking your puffy face in his hands. 

   “What happened?” he asks softly, softer than you know him. 

   “I don't want you to be angry with me,” you whisper, and he prods the inside of his cheek with his tongue before nodding. 

   “I won't be, I promise.” 

   “I, uh…,” the words get stuck in your throat, and you feel the tears well up again. 

   “Whatever it is, you know I love you,” he says, and it makes your heart feel even heavier. 

   “I've been seeing someone else,” you whisper, and he takes a step back, laughing and running his hands through his hair. There is no mistake in how mad he is, because this is a new level of mad, one you haven't seen before. 

   “Who?” he barks and you flinch. “Who is it, y/n?” 

   “No, you'll hurt him. I won't let you hurt him,” you shake your head, and he steps closer again. 

   “Why should I give a fuck about how you feel right now? Huh?! For how long have you been cheating on me?” he screams into your face.

   “Rafe, please,” you beg softly, and he takes a step away again, and a second later his fist lands in a cabinet door. 

   “How long, y/n?” he yells. 

   “Four months,” you whisper, and he laughs. 

   “You gotta be kidding me.” 

   “I didn't know- It's confusing and then today-” you stammer, and he interrupts you. 

   “You were with him today? That's why you're crying? And you expect me to not go and kill that guy instantly?” 

   “I love you,” you yell at him, and he stops, furrowing his brows and looking at you more confused than you have ever seen him. 

   “What?” 

   “I think so, at least. It's very confusing,” you mumble, looking down at your hands. 

   “Is that supposed to be an apology? You tell me you've been fucking some asshole on the side and think it'll all be made okay by finally telling me that you love me after three years?” His anger is back, but he's still confused, and you don't know what to do about it. All you know is that you need to be truthful about it, as much as you can, as much as he lets you.

   “I know it doesn't make sense and I know it's not an apology. I don't mean it like that. But today, things were said by other people, not him, he was trying to help- I don't know what I feel,” you shake your head. 

   “None of that makes any sense, baby,” Rafe runs his hand over his face. 

   “I didn't think that what I felt for you was love because no one ever told me it could be like that. But I do. I love you and I made a horrible mistake, but I would have never known- I can't survive on just one. I need both of you to be happy,” you say, and he steps closer, harshly taking your face in his hand. 

   “Who!” 

   “JJ,” you whisper and his hand slips down to your throat, holding you tight enough to restrict your blood flow, making you dizzy. 

   “You let a dirty Pogue fuck you? And then you come back here and pretend like nothing happened?” 

   “I love you,” you are practically begging him to not hurt JJ, your own well-being has become secondary the moment you decided to tell Rafe about it all. 

   “Is that why you wanted to do all that new shit?” he laughs almost hysterically, squeezing a little tighter, and your vision starts getting blurry. 

   “Please,” you choke out, and he lets go again. 

   “You know what the worst part is? That this started making more sense in the last few months, and now you're tellin’ me it's because you’re fucking Maybank on the side. That's fucked up, y/n,” Rafe shakes his head. 

   “I never got mad at you for cheating on me,” you remind him quietly, it's a low blow, but you know it's gonna do the trick. His escapades early on in your relationship, and even a few slip ups in the first year after your dad, hadn't bothered you much anyway back then. 

   “No, but you never got mad at me for anything because you don't have a fucking heart. You were acting like a fucking robot until-,” he doesn't even finish the sentence, only shaking his head yet again. 

   “I don't understand why, Rafe. You have to believe me. And I tried not to. I did. For months before. And then it happened once, and I tried to stay away but then you- you hurt my feelings and I had no one else-” you stammer, and he glares at you. 

   “The best sex we ever had? Because you had just fucked him?” 

    “I know you. You're not happy with all I need. And everything you can give me- It's not enough, and I hate myself for it. I wish it was, but it isn't. And I can't keep on trying to change you. I won't do that to you. It's not fair to either of us,” you whisper. 

   “You think you can have us both? Maybe we should call your little boy toy and ask him what he thinks, because apparently you value his fucking Pogue opinion more than me!” Rafe snaps and rips the phone from your back pocket. 

   “Rafe, please don't,” you cry, and he smirks, but it's neither playful nor sweet, it's simply vicious. 

   “Oh, I have a way worse idea, baby, and you won't say no because you love me, right?” he taunts, and you nod slowly, knowing whatever’s to happen next won't be the last punishment you receive for your crimes. 

   Rafe throws you over his shoulder and carries you upstairs and into the bedroom. Throwing you on the bed as if you weigh nothing. 

   You know not to move when he's in a mood, he'll do it by himself or give you strict orders to follow. Doing anything on your own account will just make it worse for you. 

   “Take off that horrible dress,” he barks while walking into the closet to pick out a tie and get his special box for you. You do as you are told, and he comes over to you, pulling on your arms and tying your wrists together behind your back so you can't use your hands anymore. 

   Then he pulls on the strings of the tiny bikini you have on, having expected to go swimming before you left for JJ’s. The flimsy piece comes undone and Rafe slaps your ass a single time, but it stings harsh enough for you to whine a little. 

   “The more you cry, the worse it'll get,” he threatens, and you try to swallow the pain as he sits and pulls you to lie over his lap, spanking you for half an eternity. And even when he's done and goes over to softly massage your butt, it's still stinging, and you don't know how much more you can take if this was the start of it. 

   “You think that was enough? Or do you deserve some more?” Rafe asks and you gulp before replying quietly. 

   “I was a very bad girl,” you say, just like he always wanted to hear. It had only happened two times before that he had decided to play these games in such an extreme way. The first time you drunkenly flirted with some Touron and Rafe decided it was the best way to teach you a lesson. That was a month into your relationship. The second time was a week before your dad died, and he keeps telling you that he regrets doing it, but you know he doesn't. You made fun of his family that night, just a little bit, but it was enough to grant a punishment. 

   But neither of those come close to the pain you imagine he must be feeling right now. And you rather let him take his anger out on you than go and hurt JJ. That was the better option, surely. 

   “Yes, you were, baby. That's why you're gonna do whatever I say now. You know the rules. And if you come I'll hurt you some more,” Rafe pulls you back up and you nod. 

   “Won't come.” 

   “Good. Now lay down and let me fuck your throat,” he says, and you hesitate for a second but do it anyway. He's aware that you don't like it, not because it's not fun, but because he's simply too big for you to be able to breathe properly while doing it on his terms.  

   Yet here you are, lying on the bed with your head hanging off the edge. But before he tells you to open up, he goes to his box, taking out a tiny device and smirking mischievously. 

   “You know what, we're doing it differently tonight,” Rafe pulls you up to sit. Then he goes to bend you over and for a moment you think he's just gonna fuck you, but instead he shoves the toy into you, filling both holes without any prep, and you cry out at the unexpected intrusion and the low vibrations of the toy. 

   “No. You're not gonna come from that, and if there's anything on that when I pull it out, I'll make it hurt worse. Do you understand?” He warns and you nod. 

   “I understand.” 

   “Good. Kneel,” he orders and points at the rug in front of the bed, and you follow diligently. 

   When he tells you to open up, you do it, and when he tells you to moan around him, you do it, and when he tells you to look into the camera, you do it, albeit reluctantly. 

   Rafe doesn't care that you're close to choking on his cock, or that you can't stop the tears from streaming down your cheek. He doesn't care that your jaw will hurt for the two following days. He doesn't care because he knows it's still not enough punishment, and you know he's right. 

   Once he's happy with his little video, he tells you to get up and lie down again, and once you do, he pulls you towards the edge of the bed again and goes back to fucking your throat. What you can't see, because his balls are in your face, is that he's also gone back to filming you, especially the part where his dick goes so far down your throat that it's visible on your neck. 

   Somehow you manage to blend out the vibrations in your pussy and ass, the low intensity is barely doing anything to you but edge you on more and more. 

   “You're a real slut, aren't you, baby,” he huffs after pulling out and manhandling you to be face down before him. Your legs are propped up and spread wide as he harshly pulls the toy out, and you can't help the gasp that escapes your throat. 

   “Tell me you love me again, and I might stop,” he rasps, and you are about to say it, but just as you open your mouth to speak, he thrusts into you. An obscenely loud moan is all you can conjure before he starts ramming into you. 

   “Tell me how much you love me!” 

   “Love you, Rafe. Love you and your cock so much,” you cry out, and a second later your phone lands on the bed right next to your head. 

   “Look who called to check up on you, baby. Tell him how much you love when I take what's mine!” Rafe demands, and your eyes fill with tears as you see the screen. 

   “What the fuck is this?” JJ asks and you sob. 

   “Rafe, no,” you cry. 

   “You want him so bad, he has to know what it means to share you. Because I'm not letting you go, baby,” Rafe growls, fucking you harder and your tears keep on streaming. 

   “Princess, it's okay. Focus,” JJ tells you through the phone, and you don't understand why he didn't hang up immediately. 

   “I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Rafe, please,” you beg, but he won't stop, not until he's got what he wants. 

   “Tell him how much you love me,” Rafe barks, pulling on your hair and yanking you towards him. “You don't get to make any demands tonight, baby. You know what you did to me!” 

   He pushes you back down, and you land face first in the duvet, sobbing uncontrollably. “I'm sorry. I love you. I'm sorry,” you are close to hyperventilating. Your body is sore and tired, but he won't stop the attack on your poor pussy. 

   “You hear that Maybank, she loves me!” Rafe says, jealousy drenching his voice, and picks up the phone. “But I still don't think she deserves to come. Do you?” 

   “You're sick, Rafe,” JJ hisses through the phone, but your mind is starting to go blank, the noise of his skin slapping against your own, and the quenching sound of your pussy is filling your ears. 

   “No, she's sick. One dick isn't enough for the little bitch. Nah, she needs two fillings to feel better about herself,” Rafe laughs, and you're so far gone that you can barely hear him anymore. 

   “Princess, focus on me. Come on, pretty girl,” JJ pleads, and you nod absentmindedly. 

   “Shit, stop,” Rafe moans, but you can't. JJ's soft, loving words of encouragement have triggered your release, and you really don't have any control over it. 

   You moan so loud you think the whole island might hear, but you don't care, actually. And when you push your ass back into Rafe he loses his game and comes so hard that he collapses onto you almost instantly. 

   Panting you lie there, incapable of saying a single word, but at least JJ disconnected the call. 

   “I get it now,” Rafe pants and pulls you into him, hugging you and kissing the top of your head. “Maybe I can learn to live with it.” 

   “Love you,” is all you manage to say before your exhaustion takes over, and you fall into a deep dreamless slumber. 

   You don't even feel like getting up the next morning, but you do it anyway. Pulling on one of Rafe's shirts to feel a tiny bit of familiar comfort, you prod downstairs after having cleaned up the tiniest bit. 

   “Good morning,” Rafe says as soon as you step into the kitchen. 

   “Morning,” you walk past him, kissing his cheek just like any normal day. But unlike any normal day, Rafe isn't dressed yet, he's only got his shorts on and something tells you he planned it. 

   “I don't think you should get to wear my shirts right now. I'm still mad at you, remember?” he nods at you, and you sigh, wanting to turn back and go change, but his hand shoots out to hold you back. “Oh, no, no. You're gonna take it off here. And you're gonna eat without it on.” 

   “But I don't have anything else on,” you complain quietly, and he shrugs. 

   “Not my problem.” 

   You pull the shirt over your head and hand it to him. “Anything else?” 

   “Actually, yeah,” Rafe gives you a lopsided grin before sitting you up on the island. 

   It stings when he pushes into you, stretching you to your limit without any prep. But it's a punishment, you shouldn't enjoy it anyway. 

   His grunts and curses and intensely hard thrusts make you whimper, but at least he doesn't tell you off about it this time. Instead, he encourages you, wanting to see the tears and as soon as they start running his thrusts grow sloppier. 

   “I brought waffles as a peace offering,” you hear JJ's voice and footsteps that are coming closer. Your head turns, and you stare at him across the room. The shock on his face tells you that he has just as much been blindsided by this as you, and it takes him another moment to drag his eyes away from the scene. But Rafe just laughs and keeps fucking you. 

   “Look at him, he can't even look at you while I fuck you. How the fuck is that supposed to work, baby?” 

   “As if you'd like to see it the other way round,” JJ snaps back at him, his back still turned to you. But the pain is too much, you can't take it anymore. 

   “J, please,” it's a mere whisper that leaves you, but he walks over to you anyway, avoiding looking at Rafe. 

   “It's all right, I'm here,” JJ whispers to you while caressing your hair, and you look up at him, into his pretty blue eyes. 

   “Make her come,” Rafe demands, and JJ rolls his eyes. 

   “You know, if you were better at it, she would've never fucked me in the first place,” JJ glares at him, but you pull on his collar, kissing him and moaning into his mouth while Rafe keeps fucking you. 

   “You're doing so great, princess. Such a good girl,” JJ praises you, and your stomach starts filling with tiny butterflies. 

   “More,” you moan, and JJ looks up at Rafe.

   “Touch her,” he orders, and for some reason Rafe does what he says and starts rubbing harsh circles on your clit. 

   “Oh God!” you scream, so close to your release that you feel like bursting. Your back lifts off the cold marble and your lips tremble.

   “That's it. Look at me baby,” JJ whispers, and when your eyes meet his you feel afloat, just like the first time. “Let go,” he hushes, and your eyes roll back. You scream and feel how hard it is for Rafe to keep fucking you, but he tries anyway until he can't hold back anymore and fills you up with his hot seed. 

   “That was better than last night,” Rafe pants while tucking himself away, and JJ comes around to pull you up and carry you upstairs. 

   “Is this what you want?” JJ asks quietly after sitting you down on the toilet. Your voice is strained, but you only manage to nod a yes. 

   “We'll have to put down some ground rules, because I really don't wanna be in a situation where I find out what Rafe looks like when he finishes. That was way too close already,” JJ says while letting in a bath for you. 

   “I'm sorry,” you rasp, but he shakes his head. 

   “Don't apologize. If I hadn't told you to come by yesterday, this wouldn't be happening. And you should save your voice,” he smiles. 

   The hot water helps with the pain, but leaning back into JJ and being with him without having to think about what might happen if someone finds out is freeing. It's nice and good and feels a thousand times better than before. 

   “I don't care if they get it or not. I know you can't help it,” he whispers to you, softly massaging your sore thighs under the water. “Stupid hearts,” he sighs. 

   “You okay?” Rafe asks, standing in the door, and you turn to look at him and nod. “Good. I have to go to work,” he says and takes a few steps over to kiss you softly. “Love you,” he whispers and turns around to leave without waiting for you to say it back. 

   The following days are filled with planning and talking and fighting over phrasings, but in the end they manage to come to a conclusion that they can both live with. The easiest one at that. You get to choose, anything and everything when it comes to what happens between the three of you, in this weird new relationship you found yourself in. 

   Most nights you find yourself sleeping in JJ's bed instead of your own, but Rafe doesn't mind it much, never having been much of a cuddler himself. But when it gets to your darkest moments, you don't trust yourself enough to talk to JJ, maybe it's stupid, but somehow you can't change it. 

   Yet you also don't think you'll ever regret your decision, especially when you're waking up to JJ plastering you with kisses before slowly fucking you awake. Or when he goes to eat you out while a boring movie is playing. 

   Or when Rafe comes home frustrated from a meeting and uses you in any way you let him, and sometimes he even lets JJ join and not just sit there and please you mentally. 

   Your new favorite thing has to be sucking off JJ while Rafe is plowing into you. 

   With every deep thrust of Rafe's hard cock into your clenching core, you moan louder around JJ, and it's even harder for him to not come as soon as he sees your puffy lips wrapped around his dick. You love to swirl your tongue and play with his balls a little, slapping your lips and cheeks with his pretty cock until he begs for you to suck him dry. 

   The days in between when you get time to recover properly are filled with surf lessons from JJ or going shopping with Rafe. 

   It's passed the point where only the three of you and the people close to you know about the arrangement. Especially, parties start to be a boiling pot for dramatics. 

   You're at the Boneyard, playing stupid drinking games with JJ, having fun the way teenagers are supposed to be. 

   You're aware that the people around you talk, but you couldn't care less because you're on cloud nine, too happy to let anybody ruin it. But JJ is the complete opposite. The more people he hears, the more agitated he gets. 

   “What’ya say?” he snaps at some guy, pushing him back. 

   “Chill bro,” the boy tries to laugh it off. 

   “No, repeat what you said, asshole,” JJ pushes. 

   “Only the biggest of sluts need-” He doesn't get to finish the repetition of his words when JJ's fist lands in his face. You yell for him to stop, but it's like he's in a trance. It takes both John B and Pope, who storm over from the other side of the party, to pull JJ off the guy. 

   “What the fuck, bro,” John B shoves JJ backwards, but J just laughs. 

   “He deserved it.” 

   “Why, ‘cause he said something mean?” Pope snaps, and you cross your arms in front of your chest. 

   “You wouldn't get it, Pope,” JJ shakes his head and looks up at the night sky. “Y'all just don't get it.” 

   “We don't, because it doesn't make sense,” Pope counters, and you scoff. 

   “Just because you don't understand something, doesn't mean it's shit or that we're horrible people for it.” 

   “I didn't say that,” he shakes his head, but you're done with them, you have been for a long time. 

   “C’mon, J,” you say and start walking towards where you parked your car. 

   At home, you start by cleaning him up, kissing him all over in the shower until he pins you against the tiles. His kisses are forceful, and he's groping at your ass and thighs. Picking you up and fucking up into you while you moan and gasp. He doesn't give you time to come when he finishes and puts you down on your feet. 

   This is different from what you know of him, but it intrigues you too.

   JJ turns you around and snakes his arm around your thigh, pushing two fingers into your sore cunt to stop you from spilling out. 

   “I know I should've asked, but it's gonna be great. I promise,” he whispers into your ear before leading you into the bedroom and making you lie down.

   JJ is standing in front of you, your legs pressed to your chest, and he’s holding onto your hips as he fucks you. It's not loving and soft like any time before. It's harsh and fast, and you like it too much. You like the sound of his claves crashing into your ass, the way his balls slap against your skin. The wet noises your pussy makes when he drags his cock out of you just to slam right back in. And the way your tits jiggle with the movement.

   Your hands are clawing at the sheets when JJ starts playing with your clit, making you come in a matter of seconds. You know you'll be there for hours when he shoots his cum into you and just keeps going. You haven't quite figured out which way you like it better; with JJ’s incredibly small refractory period, or Rafe's stamina to hold out for just how long he wants to. 

   “Who's gonna clean that up?” you hear Rafe ask, and your head spins around to look at him. Your mind is blurry with pleasure, your mouth agape, and JJ doesn't stop and rips another orgasm from you. Rafe has never actually watched him fuck you, but something about this is making him want to stay and watch. 

   Your back arches up again, and JJ grunts and curses, filling you up for the fifth time that night, and you watch Rafe's face contort in a light confusion. 

   “You just keep going? Maybe you should give her some time, dude,” Rafe says, and you shake your head at him. 

   “She'll have time once I'm done,” JJ growls, and it sends shivers down your spine, making you roll your eyes back. “Isn't that right, baby?” 

   “Yes, yes, yes-” you scream each time his cock pushes against your cervix as if he wants to pass through it. “Want your cum, JJ, all of it,” you babble, maybe you like giving Rafe a show too. 

   “Good girl,” JJ moans and comes another time, making you clench around him with ease. 

   “You see that,” JJ smirks down at you, and you prop yourself up on your elbows to see the tip of his dick poking against your stomach. “That's it, princess,” he praises you before pushing down on your stomach, and you fall back, moaning, incapable of holding yourself up with the intense pleasure he's giving you. 

   “Give me my phone,” JJ orders, and for a moment you forgot that Rafe is still there, still watching. He hands JJ his phone and J points the lens right at where you two are connected. 

   His free hand is back to rubbing torturously harsh circles on your clit, making you mewl and cry out. 

   “Come for me, princess. Make me proud, baby,” JJ hums, and you let go of the tension. Screaming his name and squeezing his cock so hard that he comes almost instantly, pushing in farther and holding himself there until he's all done. 

   And once he's pulled out, he goes down on his knees before you, pointing the camera right at your pussy, clenching around nothing and pushing all his cum out of you and letting it drip down onto the rug. 

   “What she do?” Rafe asks just as JJ comes back from the bathroom, a wet washcloth in his hand. 

   “Nothing,” JJ mutters while cleaning you up, but you can't move, not yet. Your legs feel like they are made of rubber and your mind is empty, only having enough capacity to listen to their words. 

   “Why'd you do this then?” Rafe points at your utterly fucked out state. 

   “Do I ask you why you do what you do? No. Just let it go,” JJ snaps at him and leaves for his room. 

   “You could at least change the fucking sheets!” Rafe yells after him, but it's no use. 

   “Y/n, are you okay?” Rafe whispers and picks you up, holding you in his arms while you regain your strength. 

   “Frustrated,” you mumble and look at him with your glossy eyes. 

   “Maybank? Why?” 

   “Fight- Asshole-” you stammer, and he carries you out of the room and towards JJ’s. 

   “What did you do?” Rafe barks at JJ, your body still tightly wrapped around him. 

   “None of your fucking business,” JJ hisses. 

   “It fucking is when it ends with her losing all bodily function, you ass,” Rafe yells, and you try to cover your ears, but it doesn't really help. 

   “He called her a whore, and he had to pay for it. I don't care what they say, but they don't get to insult her,” JJ explains harshly, and you start to slowly feel your toes again. 

   “Doesn't explain why you nearly fucked her into subdrop,” Rafe shakes his head and caresses your back. “You can't just do shit like that, and you know it.” 

   “She said she was okay with it.” 

   “She's a fucking people pleaser, asshole,” Rafe snaps, and you lift your head from his shoulder. 

   “Please stop,” you whisper, and he wipes a tear from your cheek. 

   “It's okay, baby,” Rafe whispers to you before turning back to JJ. “Don't let your fucking anger out on her without making sure she's alright.”

   “Noted,” JJ says, and you can practically hear him roll his eyes. 

   “Good, because you gotta aftercare the shit out of her now. I'm not cleaning up your messes, Maybank,” Rafe tells him and basically hands you to him as if you were nothing more than a puppet. 

   “I'm sorry, love,” JJ whispers, placing you in the hot water of the bathtub and running his hand through his hair. 

   “S’okay,” you mumble and look up at him with a droopy smile. 

   “I'm gonna clean up, and then I'll be right with you, all right?” He kisses you gently and leaves again. 

   You think back to it, the moment he snapped. He looked like a different person, more like his dad in a way, and although you never even saw Luke Maybank up close, you know it’s true. You know the rumors are true. He didn't tell you, but in your heart you know it. 

   If his friends hadn't come, he wouldn't have stopped. If they hadn't showed up, the other guy would be dead. If it hadn't been for you, none of it would've happened. 

   It’s a rather quick spiral that you go down, and you can't stop yourself from crying, not even when JJ comes back and looks at you rather confused. 

   “Hey. Hey, pretty girl, don't cry. It's okay. You're okay. I'm here,” he tells you and pulls your head to his chest. But it doesn't help. You can't stop feeling like it was all your fault, all the pain in your life is your fault. 

   “Rafe!” JJ shouts, and it only takes a minute for him to run in. 

   “What did you do now?” 

   “Nothing, I came back, and she's crying, and she won't stop,” JJ defends himself. 

   “Go. You seriously have no clue,” Rafe shakes his head and takes JJ's spot next to you. 

   “What's wrong, baby,” Rafe whispers to you, holding your face in his big hands. 

   “It's my fault. I killed him. It's my fault,” you sob, and he shakes his head. 

   “No, it's not. You know it's not,” Rafe assures you, but you're too far gone for it to work.

   “I did it. I killed him,” you cry, and he clenches his jaw. 

   “Y/n, you didn't drive that car, it's not your fault. Please, listen to me,” Rafe pleads, but you shake your head, not wanting to believe him. 

   “Hey, hey, look at me,” he orders, and you turn your eyes back on him. “Three things you feel, name them.”

   “Pain. Tired. Sad,” you answer slowly. 

   “Four things you can touch.” 

   “Water, you, me, bathtub,” you reply a little faster and he nods. 

   “Five things you see,” Rafe whispers, and you look around in front of you.

   “Towel, shower, robe, painting-” your eyes get stuck on the blonde boy that is standing in the doorway of the bathroom, “JJ.” 

   Rafe snaps around to look at him. “I told you to leave!” 

   “What's wrong with her?” JJ asks quietly, and your heart sinks to the bottom of your stomach. 

   “Leave!” Rafe yells, and it takes a moment for JJ to realize that it will have consequences if he doesn't. But Rafe has already turned back around to you, stroking your hair. “We should get you to bed, baby.” 

   He dries you up and puts you in a shirt of his to sleep in, before laying you down in your bed and turning off the lights. 

   When you wake up, you're alone, and you decide to not get ready and just go downstairs the way you are. Before you can meet the boys in the kitchen, you overhear them talking and stop in your tracks. 

   “That doesn't make sense,” JJ says. 

   “No shit. But that's just how it's been ever since. Your stupid fight triggered something, and the day is coming up in a week- It's a fucking minefield this time of year,” Rafe sighs. 

   “So we distract her?” JJ asks and Rafe scoffs. 

   “That's just delaying it. No, you just gotta stay with her and make sure she won't spiral. And when she does, you have to keep telling her that it's not her fault, and pull her out of it. The naming thing always works,” Rafe replies. 

   “And what if it doesn't?” 

   “I don't know.” 

   You turn the corner and pretend like you just came down the stairs, walking straight to the coffee machine. 

   “How did you sleep?” Rafe asks with a smile. 

   “Alone,” you say and take your mug, nearly burning your tongue as you take a sip. 

   “I'm sorry, y/n, for yesterday and all,” JJ apologizes, but you just shrug. 

   “Shit happens.” Pretending to not care is easy, too easy. 

   “I’m gonna be at the office all day. You think you're gonna be all right?” Rafe asks and you nod. 

   “I don't know why we shouldn't be.” 

   You spend your days training, not having done so in too long for your own liking. The water calms your mind and gives you enough time to reflect on your life choices. 

   You know Rafe is right. You know that it's not your fault. But the guilt you feel around it doesn't just vanish because of it. 

   Later that week, while at work, Rafe texts you that you're having dinner at the country club with his dad, meaning JJ isn't allowed to come. 

   “I'll just enjoy the view right now,” JJ smiles and watches you get dressed. The underwear set is new, and you can tell by the way he's looking at you that he wants nothing more than to take it off again. 

   “If it was my call,” you start, but he interjects. 

   “I know, but it isn't. Besides, I don't really give a shit about family dinners and all that fancy bullshit.” 

   “Sarah will be there, and John B,” you remind him, but he shrugs. 

   “So what?”

   “Have you talked to them at all in the last few weeks?” you ask, and JJ rubs over the light stubble on his chin. 

   “They didn't reach out either.” 

   “They are your family, though. That's what you told me,” you whisper.

   “I have a new family now. I have you,” JJ smiles and takes your dress from the clothing hanger. 

   “That's not enough, and you know it,” you say while stepping into the dress and letting him zip it up. 

   “It's enough for you,” he says, and you sigh, looking at him through the mirror in your closet.

   “But I'm a heartless bitch with more money than anyone else on this island. I don't need anything more, and if I did, I could just buy it.” Your fingers fumble with the necklace until JJ takes it from your hands and places it around your neck. 

   “I know there's a heart in there,” JJ says while holding you from behind, his right hand resting on top of your chest. 

   “Horrible. We should go get a knife and cut it out,” you whisper with a smile, and he kisses your shoulder. 

   “You'd kill me if I said what I was thinking right now,” he mumbles against your skin and your heart stops for a moment, scared that he would say the dreaded words that you know will definitely complicate your life even more.

   “Then you really shouldn't say it.” 

   “I should, but I won't,” he looks back up, leaning his head against yours, smiling. 

   The dinner goes rather smoothly, although Sarah still gives you a side eye and once the Camerons are gone, John B asks how JJ is, but nothing more. 

   “Boring as ever,” you complain on the drive home. 

   “Glad he didn't ask when we're getting married,” Rafe exhales a laugh. 

“Hmmm, let me think,” you tap your finger against your chin in a joking manner. “We can fuck them all over and just fly to Vegas right now.” 

   “Wouldn't be the worst idea we ever had,” he laughs and takes your hand up to kiss it just as he turns into your driveway. 

   “My mom expects a huge white wedding. At least a hundred guests,” you sigh while getting out of the car. 

   “We should start planning then,” Rafe grins at you, pulling you into his side and kissing the top of your head.

   “What happens to that one, once we get married?” Rafe asks you, pointing at JJ, who is standing in the kitchen with nothing more than his boxers on. 

   “They should make this harem thing legal,” JJ says and chugs the rest of his drink. 

   “A harem is one guy with many women, dumbass,” you laugh. 

   “The opposite of that, then,” JJ shrugs. 

   “Sure,” Rafe rolls his eyes at him, and JJ flips him off. 

   “Sometimes I think you guys forget who's the boss around here,” you say and zip your dress open, letting it fall to the floor and walking upstairs. “First one up gets to start,” you call out and hear them arguing already. 

   “Just because you're first, doesn't mean you know what you're doing,” JJ complains. 

   “Fine, you start then, genius,” Rafe scoffs, and you furrow your brows, it was unusual for Rafe to give in and let JJ do anything to you unless you specifically asked for it. 

   “What's the plan here, boys?” you ask with an anticipating smile on your lips. 

   JJ pulls you into his arms, kissing you deeply and pushing you against the bed. The backs of your knees hit the wood and you fall down. 

   “Just relax, gorgeous,” he muses and drops down on his knees before you, taking off your heels and letting his hands run up to your thighs. You sigh into it, the feeling of his fingers digging into your skin and the kisses he leaves on the inside of your thighs before unclasping the lace body right on top of your pussy. 

   JJ rolls the fabric up to reveal your stomach, kissing and nipping at your skin; biting your hip and making you jump in surprise. He loves to tease you, and you'd never tell him to stop, ever. 

   He comes up to kiss you, pushing the lace up even farther and helping you take it off completely. Kissing your neck and leaving marks you hear him chuckle, then his lips meet your ear, and he whispers, “you think he's taking any notes?” 

   Your eyes dart over to Rafe who pulled a chair over and is watching you carefully. “Maybe,” you reply. 

   JJ hums, picking up his head to smile at you. “Hopefully.” 

   JJ kisses down your neck, following along your collarbone and to your tits. He sucks on your nipple, grazing over it with his teeth before he pulls on it and your back arches up. 

   “Would be neglectful to not give you the same attention,” JJ says to your other tit, and you would tell him off if he wasn't squeezing your sensitive nipple right in that second. His hand is playing with your sore tit while his mouth attacks the other. It's overwhelming and perfect, and you don't see any reason to hold back. Your moans and gasps fill the room, and they continue on even once he has let off your boobs and moved downward again. He sucks hickeys into the soft skin of your thighs, making you mewl and squirm. 

   “Tell me what you want me to do to you, princess,” JJ demands, and you grasp into his hair to push his face into your clothed cunt. He blows a little against your wet slip, and you instinctively want to close your legs, but he holds them in place. 

   “You should let me take this pretty thing off first,” JJ smirks, and you lift your hips. The tiny slip is off faster than you can say your own name. 

   “Tastes so fucking sweet, baby,” JJ moans after licking over your wet pussy, his tongue dipping between your folds and torturing your clit a little. 

   “Hold on, princess,” JJ smirks up at you, and your hand finds his hair, tugging on the fine strands as he plunges his tongue into your pussy. His nose presses against your clit, and with every stroke of his tongue, he edges you closer. 

   “More, JJ, please,” you moan, and he starts to suck on your clit while pushing his fingers into you. Curling them and sucking harsher, almost biting down on your clit, and you can't help but grind your hips against him. When his fingers come up to your face, and you lick them off, you already feel like you're about to explode. 

“come on my tongue, baby,” JJ hums into you, licking long strides up your pussy before pressing his tongue flat against your entrance and rubbing his nose on your clit. 

   You keep rolling your hips and moaning his name as you come undone for him. His new technique isn't as good as the old one, but you're not one to complain about it.

   JJ gets up and wipes his face on a small towel that Rafe hands him, but you can't stop staring at the wet spot in his boxers. 

   “Again?” you ask JJ with a smile and he shrugs. 

   “Can't help it. You taste too good, baby.” 

   You hold your hand out for Rafe after sitting up, and he takes and intertwines your fingers. He's still in his suit pants and shirt, looking down at you with a lustrous smile. 

   “You look really hot in this,” you whisper and nod, but your hands wander to the buttons, slowly opening the shirt until you can push it off his shoulders. His abs look so rideable to you, but you are still unsure if he'd let you once you ask. 

   “You're way hotter, baby. Next time I get to take off the fancy shit,” Rafe growls, his hand cupping your tit, brushing his thumb over your sore nipple, but his eyes shift towards JJ. “You understand?” 

   But JJ just holds his hands up in defense and sits down on the chair. 

   “Take the pants off, babe,” you pout at Rafe, and he slowly opens his belt, pulling it out and dropping it to the side. It’s almost as if he is doing a strip show for you, and you love every second of it. 

   Rafe pushes you to lie down, your hands pinned over your head as he kisses you aggressively. His free hand gropes at your tit, and you lift your hips to press your wet cunt against his hard cock. 

   “Always so needy,” Rafe mocks you before going down on his knees between your legs. 

   He's aggressive and fast, sucking on your clit with so much pressure building that you are scared he's gonna rip it off. But your screams just turn him on even more. His tongue thrusts into you with a harsh pace, and you try to get away from him, but he's holding you in place. 

   “Curl it,” JJ says, and Rafe listens, curling his tongue up and ripping an orgasm out of you in a matter of seconds. 

   “J,” you pant and Rafe wants to get up, but you close your thighs around his head. “No, you stay. J, come here,” you tap the bed right next to your head.

   They both do as you say; and while Rafe is eating you out another time, JJ is fucking your throat and praising you. 

   Before JJ can come, you pull him from your throat and pump his cock slower, trying to pace him just a bit. But when you look at the two boys, so helpless when it comes to your wants and needs, you can't help yourself. 

   With a quick move, you have J’s dick back in your warm and wet mouth, swirling your tongue and hollowing your cheeks. Your hand is massaging his balls, and he throws his head back and fills your mouth with his salty cum. It feels so good, you come instantly, creaming all over Rafe's pretty face. 

   “Definitely doing this again,” you sigh, falling flat into the bed and not planning on getting up anytime soon. 

   The engagement dinner is jarring and the only reason you can get through it is because Rafe keeps reminding you that it'll be over soon, his hand resting on your thigh the whole night. 

   But the engagement party, the weekend after is fun, is actually fun. 

   You invited everyone you knew, including JJ's friends and Barry, who you haven't talked to in ages. You spend the first half of the night tightly wrapped in Rafe's arm, smiling and laughing at some things his friends say. 

   Sitting on the couch on Rafe's lap, you let your eyes wander, and they get stuck on JJ, who is visibly uncomfortable while nipping on his beer. 

   “Maybe a blowjob will lighten his mood,” you whisper to Rafe, but he shakes his head. 

   “No, but honesty might.” 

   “What do you mean?” you ask and look at your, now, fiancée. 

   “I mean, he's been miserable and fighting it ever since we brought up that this would be happening soon. Not like you have much of a choice anyway,” Rafe shrugs lightly and runs his hand over your back. 

   “How do you know he's miserable?” you wonder, eyeing your boyfriend across the room. 

   “Because I use my eyes, and to be fair, I'd be pouting too if you wanted to marry him instead of me.” 

   “And what am I supposed to tell him? He knows I don't have a choice if I wanna keep the company,” you sigh. 

   “The truth. That you love him,” Rafe whispers and kisses your cheek. 

   “You can't know that,” you shake your head and he laughs. 

   “I see the way you two look at each other. I love you so much, baby, but you've never looked at me like that.”

   “That doesn't mean anything,” you fight his words, not wanting him to be right about it. 

   “I mean, you can try it with the blowjob, but I think the truth would be better,” Rafe smiles and slaps your ass, signaling you to get up. 

   You're dragging your feet walking over to JJ. “Look at that, a Pogue in a Kook mansion,” you tease with a smile. 

   “Hey,” he mumbles without looking at you. 

   “You okay?” you whisper and he nods, avoiding your eyes. 

   “Why shouldn't I be?”

   “Because you've been avoiding me all day.” You reach out your hand to hold onto his and as soon as your delicate fingers close around his, he stares at you. Pain filled blue eyes and a merely unnoticeable tremble on his lip. 

   “Do I have to be happy about it? You want me to be happy about the fact that you're leaving me?” he hisses at you, but you feel like a weight is lifted off you, a soft smile tugging at your lips. 

   “Come on, I need to tell you something,” you whisper and lead him upstairs to your bedroom, unlocking the door and stepping inside. 

   “Why did you bring me here?” JJ asks, his hand is holding onto the bottle for dear life.

   “Sit with me,” you say and place yourself at the edge of the bed. He follows reluctantly, yet again avoiding to even look at you. 

   “JJ, I'm not leaving you,” you whisper and he scoffs.

   “Sure you aren't.”

   “I'm serious, J. Just because I have to marry Rafe, doesn't mean anything changes between us.” 

   “Sure it won't, until you want to have kids, and then it's no longer appropriate,” he mutters, and you don't know how to convince him. Maybe Rafe was right with his assumption about him, about you. But the thought of it is debilitating. 

   “When I have kids, they will have my name, JJ. Do you not want kids?” you ask and he sighs. 

   “I don't just want any kids, y/n, I want your kids,” he whispers and turns to look at you. 

   “Why would you think I'll leave you then?” 

   “Because you are marrying Rafe. Starting a family with Rafe. Just like the plan was. I'm nowhere close to being part of that picture,” he talks himself down, and you really have no more words left inside you. 

   You take his face into your hands and kiss him. Your heart is racing while looking at him and your throat feels dry, but you know you have to do it. And you know Rafe is right, you've known it ever since you let JJ compromise your thoughts from the very first time. 

   “I love you, JJ,” you whisper, and his eyes go wide. 

   “You sure?” he asks, and as soon as you nod he pins you down onto the bed and starts kissing you. Your giggles and the soft attempts to get away from him are making it even better, until he has you pinned right where he wants you, and you are panting, looking up at him. 

   “You're so beautiful, y/n,” JJ whispers, diving down to kiss you, sloppy and with a smile on both your lips. 

   “We should go back down,” you whisper, and he shakes his head. 

   “Not yet.”

   “They might be looking for us and I don't-” 

   You don't get to finish your sentence when his lips find yours again. He sucks your bottom lip into his mouth and entangles his tongue with yours until you moan into him. 

   “I love you, y/n,” JJ whispers, and nuzzles his face into your neck. 

   And before you can think twice about it, your little make out session has turned into the best sex you've ever had with him. JJ is sitting under you as you softly roll your hips. He's buried so deep inside you that every miniscule move is sending shockwaves of pleasure through your body. His hands are rubbing over your hips and ass in a perpetual motion, while yours play with his hair. 

   You think you could stay like this forever, just you and him in perfect synchrony; in love. 

   And the only time his eyes leave yours is when he dips his head to suck on your tits, or kiss your neck. 

   When he turns you around to lie down and thrusts into you, it's like he's fucking you for the first time. A plethora of praises and a dozen more “I love you’s” fall from his lips, while all you can do is moan and babble incoherently about how much you love him too. 

   When you find your way back downstairs, after what felt like an eternity, his arms are wrapped around you. JJ is himself again, flirty and always joking, and so incredibly more touchy than before. 

   “I see you made up,” Rafe smiles and holds his hand out, ready for you to take your seat back on his lap. 

   “Excuse me, you had her all night,” JJ complains and pulls you away, just to sit down next to Rafe and let you kiss him like you had wanted to. 

   “No more trouble in paradise?” Rafe whispers to you and you shake your head. 

   “I love my boys,” you sigh. 

   “And I thought you went with the blowjob,” Rafe teases you, and you roll your eyes. 

   “I could've gotten a blowjob?” JJ gasps quietly and softly pinches your thigh. 

   “You get those all the time, dumbass,” you giggle, and he smiles at you, completely enamored by your whole being. 

   “To think I get to be this lucky just because I couldn't stop staring at your tits, princess,” JJ whispers. 

   “Pretty nice tits,” Rafe agrees with a mumble. 

   “Pretty nice dicks,” you giggle and cuddle into JJ, bathing in the newfound closeness and in your head you're already planning it all out; the kids, the dog, and the two loves of your life.

please don't copy and/or post my work onto other platforms! ~e©ho

taglist: @ijustwantttoread @spideysimpossiblegirl @redhead1180 @princessmaybank @kys4-20 @drwstarkeyy @immyowndefender @julczimozart

[collecting-stories]

🏕 "There are love letters coming in the mail but with nothing written on the outside, not even a name, so I always give them to you, because I just assume they’re for you because I think I’ve seen you holding one of the envelopes before and you’re the kind of person that has a secret admirer, definitely not me…" from the roommate au prompt list with any of the stranger things guys, you pick!

Sorry this is so overdue, I was really going through it.

-

Love Letters - Eddie Munson

Summary: You've been giving Eddie love letters that he's been leaving in the mailbox for you.

A/N: I can't even explain how much I love this boy. Also I recently wasted money on stickers for my ipad case and half of them are Eddie Munson themed.

Stranger Things Masterlist

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

You assumed when you graduated high school and proudly left the world of lockers behind you had also abandoned all the high school cliches. Love letters and secret admirers felt like something that you should have graduated out of and, technically, you supposed that you had. The letters, that seemed to appear like clockwork in your mailbox, were not actually for you. At least, that was the conclusion that you had come to early on.  

The letters were, in your mind, all for your roommate. It made sense at least. Eddie was the one playing gigs in the city with his band and it wasn’t a far stretch of the imagination to think that maybe someone found out where he lived and was sending him notes. Maybe a little creepy but what groupies weren’t?  

None of them actually had his name on them, or any name on them for that matter, but it still felt like the most obvious explanation to the letters that showed up.  

“You got another one.” You announced, holding the blank envelope up in your hand as you leaned against the doorframe of Eddie’s room.  

He was laying on the twin bed that he shoved in the corner, listening to Metallica with his eyes closed, no doubt trying to memorize the chord progressions in the song. Eddie was really the only musically talented person you knew but that didn’t stop you from being absolutely in awe of his ability to learn a guitar solo from sound alone. He had a great ear and you constantly told him he could be going to some fancy music conservatory if he really wanted. (“You’d blow all those snooty Julliard kids away”). Instead he was here, getting secret love notes from someone on campus, living in an apartment dorm with you, and pretending that he gave a shit about college classes. (“You know where the best audience is? College campuses!”).  

Eddie cracked an eye open and then sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and patting his hair back into place as he reached for the letter with his other hand. This was entirely routine. “Why do you always assume they’re for me? What if they’re for you?” He hadn’t opened any of them either, sitting in a pile on his desk.  

“Why would they be for me?” You almost wanted to laugh and say something self-deprecating but you held your tongue. “Who’d even be sending them?”  

“I don’t know, could be anybody,” he waved the envelope around in the air, “you could open it and find out.”  

You raised an eyebrow at him skeptically, “I feel like you know who it is,” you replied, grabbing the envelope from his hand, “I mean, you’re acting like you know who it is.” 

“If I knew who it was,” he replied, “wouldn’t I tell you?” 

You tore open the envelope as you stared at him, “It’s probably that creepy guy from downstairs who hangs around the mailboxes and stares at my ass all the time.” 

“I mean it’s a nice ass,” he teased, laughing when you smacked him with a pillow. He leaned back against the wall and pulled his feet up to sit cross legged on the bed, “it’s a compliment!” 

“Some kind of compliment,” you laughed, “guess I can rule you out as my secret admirer then...if these letters are for me.” You unfolded the letter in question and looked down at the typewritten words, “oh yeah...definitely not for you.” 

“How do you know it’s not me?” Never one to sit still, Eddie hopped up off the bed and moved into your personal space, standing right beside you, leaned over your side, hair brushing your cheek as he silently read the letter that had been sent, as he claimed, to you. “Wow, this is some really shakespearen shit. Take a real professional to write a letter that good.” 

“Jealous? Maybe you should take it then...probably one of your groupies. Look,” you pointed to a familiar phrase in one of the passages, “this is in that song you like isn’t it? The one you guys always open shows with.” 

“So you know my setlist?” He questioned, stroking his chin dramatically. You rolled your eyes. “Interesting.” 

“Not interesting,” you replied, “of course I know your setlist, I go to every show. So does the person who wrote this, obviously.”  

“Or maybe they play an instrument in said show.”  

“Eddie,” 

He hummed in response to the sound of his name passing your lips. 

“You’re not dicking me around for a laugh or something are you?” You asked, looking at him suspiciously. You wouldn’t go so far as to catorgize Eddie Munson’s jokes as pranks but you wouldn’t deny that he was definitely the type that enjoyed pulling off shenanigans at the expense of his friends. Especially, it usually seemed, you.  

You’d fallen victim to plenty of harmless teasing (and you usually gave just as good as you got). Somehow cheesy letters in the mail with no postscript or marking felt too serious to joke about, as if the grave matter of secret admirers and the ones they loved was too touchy a subject to breach in a joking way. Or maybe you were just fishing for Eddie to say something that ultimately you knew he wasn’t going to say.  

“What?” Eddie looked genuinely surprised at the accusation, as if messing with you was an unfathomable act. Though maybe it was just messing with your feelings that he couldn’t imagine. Any jokes he’d pulled in the past had always been tasteful enough that you found them funny, no convincing needed. “I would never joke about a love letter.” 

“I still don’t know how you can be sure that the letter is for me. It literally has no name on it...aside from being in our mailbox, which I’ll remind you is super fucking creepy, there’s no indication that it’s for me.” 

“Well,” Eddie looked as if he faltered for a moment before raising an eyebrow at you, “why do you think it’s for me?” He asked.  

“I don’t know,” you shrugged, “if I had to choose between the two of us, I wouldn’t send myself a love letter.” 

“Yeah cause that’d be fucking weird.” Eddie laughed, “I mean even I’m not that weird.” 

“You know what I mean Eddie,” you smacked his arm.  

He nodded and took the letter from you, skimming over it curiously as if you hadn’t just read it out loud to him. “Definitely not for me.” 

“You can’t possibly know that.” 

“Sure I can.” A smile broke out on his face as he stepped away from you to grab the other letters on his desk, “I wrote it. These too.” 

“You wrote them?” You couldn’t keep the shock off your face. Not at the fact that he had written them, you knew he was an amazing writer (a person’s not that good at world building without being talented with a pen) but you hadn’t expected them to be coming from him. And it was almost as if your brain wasn’t fully capable of working out exactly what Eddie was trying to tell you. “Why would you leave love letters in our mailbox?” 

“You know,” he mentioned, grin still in place, “I did my senior year of highschool three times.” 

“What?” You asked, blinking.  

“You were valedictorian right?” He asked. 

“Yeah, so? What does that have to do with this?” 

“Just that...you’re kinda dumb sometimes.” He laughed and jumped out of the way when you tried to smack him again. “Hey, hands to yourself sweetheart! I’m just stating the facts here.”  

“I’m not dumb, Eddie!” You insisted, though truth be told you were feeling a little dumb right now. There was an answer right there in front of you but it was like your brain just couldn’t reach it. “I just...don’t get what you’re trying to say.” 

“I’m trying to say that I’ve been sending love letters but not to myself,” he replied, still ering on the cryptic side.  

At this point you were positive you needed a giant neon flashing sign spelling out the words for you to fully comprehend them. It wasn’t that you didn’t get what he was saying, more so just that you were scared to get it. If you got it, if he meant exactly what you thought he meant and he wasn’t just playing around with you, which wasn’t an Eddie sort of thing to do at all, then that was a whole other can of worms to open and you weren’t entirely sure you had the strength of heart to manage. But god he was staring at you with that too sweet half smile and you wanted to kiss him on the mouth and hold his hand and read all the letters he’d written.  

“Did you like, have a stroke or something? Are you still with me?” Eddie asked, waving a hand in front of your face. 

You pushed his hand away again, “I’m just...like, processing this whole thing.” 

“What’s there to process?” Eddie knew he was supposed to be nervous or worried or maybe even a little anxious but he wasn’t. He was just excited, practically buzzing as he waited for you to react. It wasn’t that he was especially sure of himself either, but Eddie wasn’t stupid and he certainly didn’t think you were either. If he’d noticed the changes in your relationship, the closeness and flirtation, than you had too.  

“I just...you like me?” You asked, the words slow to leave your mouth, as if you didn’t quite believe what you were saying, “I mean like...you like me?” 

Eddie scoffed, “are you kidding, I fucking love you.” 

“Why didn’t you just say something?” 

“Honestly, thought this would be more fun...didn’t realize you were a moron.” he replied, matter of fact. 

“Eddie!” You whined, glaring at him. So maybe you were pouting like a little kid but you couldn’t help it. This was just like him though and maybe that was exactly why you should have figured it out in the first place. Dramatically epic and romantic, well thought out, elaborate, and yet he was teasing you at the same time.  

“Well?” He took a deliberate step closer to you and leaned in, “you still haven’t told me how you feel. Here I am, pouring my heart out to you on paper and you’re just standing there twisting the knife with your silence.” He pressed his hand over his heart as he spoke, making a fist as though he were holding an invisible knife and wrenching it into his chest.  

“Typically I make it a rule not to encourage people who make fun of me,” you replied, biting your lip at the look of faux shock on Eddie’s face. 

“I would never,” he immediately interjected, “I’ve never said a mean thing about you in my life.” 

“You just told me I was a moron.” 

“Wasn’t me. Must’ve been some other Eddie...” his eyes shifted back and forth as if he would find someone lurking in his room. 

“Must’ve been,” you rolled your eyes. 

“In that case-” 

“In that case,” you repeated, cutting him off, “I guess I love you too.” 

[gukyi]

love me or we both go down | kth

summary: after going through with an arranged marriage to please his parents and secure his inheritance of the family business, kim taehyung thinks he’s got it all figured out. he doesn’t. apparently just being married to you isn’t enough, not when everybody and their mother can pick up on the fact that the two of you absolutely loathe each other. but taehyung wants his inheritance one way or another, so he decides that desperate times call for desperate measures: the two of you need to fall in love, and you need to fall in love fast.

{enemies to lovers!au, arranged marriage!au, rich kids!au}

pairing: kim taehyung x female reader genre: fluff, angst, smut (i know, crazy right?) word count: 32k warnings: oral sex (m & f receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, multiple unprotected sex scenes (they’re married y’all), fat cock tae, tae has a wife kink, lots of praise, alcohol consumption (but they’re safe), minor character death (not explicit), mentions of heart attack, slow burn like there is no tomorrow a/n: hello and welcome to the fic everyone, literally everyone, has been waiting for! i am so, so, so excited to share this with you all, especially because none other than rose @kinktae​ helped me write the smut, and i am literally forever indebted to her. you all better go spam rose with all the love and support you can because this fic would not be here without her and i love her so much. 

also, to all my readers who aren’t comfortable reading smut, please know that the smut in this fic is not imperative to the storyline, and you skipping past it will not affect your reading experience., enjoy!

Never in your life have wedding bells felt so ominous.

The sound of them is akin to the sound of strings, of a single piano note in a horror movie, right when the film opens and someone random is about to die on screen for the sake of proving to the audience that this is, in fact, a horror movie. Make no mistake about it; these wedding bells spell doom for you, too. And the most horrific part about them is that just like that poor, helpless soul in the movie, there is no way for you to escape your fate either. 

With only seconds left to go before you have no choice but to promise yourself to the man waiting at the other end of the aisle, you desperately try to think of any last-ditch efforts to get out of this. Many, if not all of them, are utterly useless. 

Feigning sudden illness won’t work, because then your parents will just reschedule the wedding to a later date. Running away is fruitless. Where will you go? The parking lot?

If only you had a lover out there in the audience somewhere that could object to the marriage when the officiant says, “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.” A knight in shining armor that could whisk you out of the venue and off to a new life, far away from here. Too bad all of the people you’ve dated before hate you now. 

Maybe getting married isn’t such a bad thing after all. Instead of having relationships with multiple people who will eventually despise your existence, you only have to have a relationship with one. And the feeling, as has always been, is mutual. 

You bristle as your assistants do some last-minute prepping, fixing your sleeve and adjusting your necklace and making sure you don’t trip on your enormous train. They flutter around you like a swarm of well-meaning but ignorant butterflies complicit in the agenda of your family. None of them have said a word to you about the wedding ever since you arrived at the venue, choosing to talk more about things like the weather. Not that you were ever under the impression they had been hired to entertain you. Maybe they were told to not engage you, just in case you try to conspire with them.

As if they could be of any use in your wildly unrealistic escape plans. 

The truth is that, unless you were to drop dead on this marble flooring right now, you’re getting married. Whether you like it or not.

The doors open. 

You’ve attended red carpets, galas, award shows, and balls. You’ve had hundreds of cameras flashing in your face, the bright light capturing each and every centimeter of you. You’ve had paparazzi waiting outside the restaurants you eat at, the stores you shop at, desperate to catch a picture of you in sweatpants without a drop of makeup on. You’ve been on dates with ex-lovers that looked at you like you were a piece of meat with a credit card. And yet, for some goddamn reason, walking down the aisle in a white dress the size of Pluto, with the rest of your life waiting for you at the other end, makes you feel fucking transparent. 

Face resolute, you clutch onto your bouquet so tightly the flowers feel like they’re about to pop right out of your grasp. Determined not to look at anybody in the audience, you stare straight ahead, right into the eyes of your future husband.

Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen multiple times drunk off his ass with hickies dotting his neck and jawline, cleans up pretty well. For someone getting married, at least. He dons a simple black tuxedo that still probably costs more than the average car, his caramel brown hair is pushed back off his forehead, and his expression is firm and still. He most certainly has had an equally expensive team prepping him, but they haven’t done too bad a job. The silver lining is that he doesn’t look any more thrilled than you are to be doing this, right here, right now. But to his credit, this is definitely the best he’s ever looked, as far as you’re concerned. 

When you reach him, he offers his hand out to you, a hand that you only accept for the sake of professionalism. The bouquet in your hands is handed off to one of your bridesmaids, and the two of you take your position at the front. Your train drags along the aisle, draping over the few stairs you had to climb to reach the altar, this satin trail behind you that cements you to the floor. It may as well be a ball-and-chain. It’s about as heavy as one, anyway. 

This is the longest you and Taehyung have ever held eye contact. Not that you’re really keeping track of how long the two of you have met each other’s gazes, but if you had to make an educated guess, this would definitely be the victor. Most of the time you end up sneering at each other ten seconds in, but to be fair, those other times you were also not getting married. To one another. In a ceremony attended by hundreds of people. And cameras.

There can be no sneering here. 

“Don’t you look nice?” Taehyung whispers, loud enough so only the two of you can hear. He has that drawling, sickly sweet tone to his voice, the one that you hate because it makes him sound like he thinks he’s so much better than everyone else. “Surprised they were able to makeup that scowl off your face.”

This, of course, brings on a hearty scowl only he can see, your backs both facing the rows of attendees. “How much concealer are you wearing to cover up all of the hickies on your neck?” You quip back easily. It’s not like the two of you are going to pretend he doesn’t waltz around at every club or bar or private venue he can find, looking for his next treat. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Taehyung grins, and if you weren’t standing in front of hundreds of people about to get married, there’s no telling what next you would do.

The two of you would probably go on like that for another ten minutes if it’s not for the officiant, who coughs once he’s ready and opens the book in his hands. Next to you, Taehyung straightens, hands clasped together at his front, and lips pressed into a neat line. You do the same. There will be no giggles, no laughter nor smiles, nor any genuine emotion at this wedding. This is a wedding for the sake of politics, for economics, for security, and anyone in attendance would be a fool to think otherwise. Especially you. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends, loved ones, and esteemed guests,” the officiant bellows, listing off as many groups of people as he possibly can in an effort to both include and compliment every person in the audience, “We are gathered here to celebrate the wedding, and future life, of Taehyung and Y/N…”

Taehyung turns to you, grinning in that god-awful way, the way he does when he feels like he’s got something over you. And sure, you can’t think of any punishment quite as bad as this, but what’s Taehyung got to smile about? He’s marrying himself off to a woman he hates, kissing goodbye his days as a free-spirited, heartbreaking bachelor, and promising what may very well be the rest of his life to loving you. That is not cause for celebration. 

But perhaps, to him, your suffering is enough to bring a smile to his face. 

Your vows are, to put it simply, total bullshit. Your family hired someone to write yours and there’s not a doubt in your mind that his family did the same thing. This nonsense talk, this complete and utter garbage that spews from your perfectly-glossed lips, shit about how you promise to love each other until the end of your days, how you promise to take care of each other when you’re sick and accompany each other at every event, every gala, every ball. Shit about how you promise to look only at each other, promise to uphold your family traditions and become a dependable spouse. 

The words don’t belong to you. But the thing is that this marriage was never yours anyway. 

When the kiss comes, there’s a part of you that thinks maybe you should have psyched yourself up a little more for this. When Taehyung pulls you in, placing a stiff hand on your lower back as he brings you towards his chest, your stomach turns and shivers run down your spine. The feeling of his hand on your body, the breath from his lips brushing against your own, are enough to keep you frozen in place. 

He smiles at you, almost as if to ask, “Are you ready?”

And you squeeze your eyes shut, almost as if to respond, “Let’s do this.”

When his lips meet yours, there is almost nothing. Nothing runs through you, nothing explodes, nothing strikes. But when he pulls away and cheers and applause rings out throughout the room, there is something. A little heat, a remnant of a flame, left on your lips. A little sting, just to remind you it happened. 

The entire hall is cheering but nothing about this is worth celebrating. The fact of the matter is that you and Taehyung will never love each other the way that you are supposed to. 

“Ugh, finally.”

The elevator doors haven’t even properly opened by the time Taehyung is loosening his tie, tugging it off over his head as he stretches his head back and runs a hand through his perfectly-styled hair. As he rakes his fingers through his caramel locks, the hairspray and gel loosens, strands falling down by the side of his face, framing his temple.

“Don’t sound so relieved,” you huff out, deciding now is as good a time as any to start getting undressed yourself. Reaching down to lift up the hem of your reception dress, you tug off your heels, already feeling lighter on your feet. Who cares if Taehyung is watching you pull off your stilettos like a defeated movie heroine? You don’t think you can walk another step in those shoes. “We still have to live together, you know.”

“Don’t remind me,” Taehyung says gruffly, brushing by you roughly as he stomps out of the elevator. “I’m just glad the fucking night is over. I swear, seeing that fake-ass smile on your face made me want to gouge my eyes out.”

You storm after him, refusing to be the helpless damsel in this situation. “Oh, like you didn’t also have that exact same fake-ass smile on your face. It almost made me think you were actually enjoying yourself tonight.”

“I was only enjoying the fact that I know you hate this just as much as I do.” It’s perhaps the only thing you will ever be able to empathize with him on. Mutually relishing in the other’s destruction. Taehyung fumbles with the keypad to the door to the penthouse for a moment before you hear the lock click, the door sliding open as the entrance lights flicker on. 

The reason Taehyung’s penthouse is so clean is because he’s never lived here before. Neither of you have—Taehyung’s parents bought it just for the two of you. And as much as you absolutely despise the idea of having to live with him, at least it was not you who paid for your place of residence. 

You can tell Taehyung’s never lived here before because it’s actually quite nicely decorated inside. The ceilings are high and the sleek velvet curtains are pulled open, revealing a shimmering skyline. The furniture is modern and functional, and the whole damn place smells brand new. You’ve had the unfortunate pleasure of entering the place Taehyung lived in before now, and it looked nothing like this. The furniture was worn and stained despite the live-in maid, the house reeked of five hundred different spices that wafted from the kitchen to the living room, and the bookshelves were covered with comics, graphic novels, and old textbooks. 

If it weren’t for the fact that you and Taehyung are rich kids in their twenties that hate each other, you might have actually thought the place looked… homey. 

You don’t have time to be impressed by the interior design and architecture skills of whoever designed this place. Right now, all you can think about is tugging yourself out of your airtight reception dress and passing out on the nearest bed. Which, hopefully, will be as far away as possible from Taehyung’s bed of choice. 

“How many bedrooms does this place have?” You ask, shimmying along the floor so you don’t trip over the hem of your dress. From the looks of it, you can see one giant hallway to your right and a massive, double-sided staircase leading up. 

“Enough,” Taehyung grumbles in response. The hazy stupor from all of the fancy champagne is starting to wear off for the both of you, leaving behind two grouchy, begrudgingly-married individuals who want absolutely nothing to do with each other and have no problems making that known. Whatever golden light of the evening that was making Taehyung at least a little bit more attractive than usual has faded, and now you see him for what he really is: an unceremoniously tired man in a suit. “You want upstairs or down?”

You gaze up at the marble staircase in front of you, then back down at your too-long dress. “Down.” The last thing you want is to trip in front of the man you have to see, every day, for the rest of your life. 

“Fine by me.” Taehyung’s halfway up the stairs by the time he turns back around to say something else. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess?”

“Yeah.” There’s no point in being hostile now. The both of you are too exhausted to mean anything by it. Besides, what else can you say? Everything to complain about has already been complained about. At least the two of you managed to wrestle out from your parents the stipulation that you would not be going on a honeymoon together. Now that would have been your worst nightmare. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It’s as good of a goodnight either of you are going to get. Taehyung heads up the stairs and disappears around a corner, and you start wandering down the hallway. All the bedrooms look the exact same other than different colors on the walls and bedsheets, but they all look serviceable to you. Clean. Empty. Far away from wherever Taehyung is. 

You pick the one at the very end of the hall just to be as much of a diva as possible, and don’t even bother drawing the curtains before tugging off your dress. It’s past one in the morning, and you’re so high up you don’t think anyone will be able to see you anyway. By the time you’ve stripped naked and are tugging up the too-tight sheets tucked into the mattress, your legs are about to give out beneath you. The bed could be made of rocks for all you care. Anything to lie down on is fine by you. 

Sleep comes fairly easily to you tonight. Once your head hits the pillow you can already feel yourself drifting off, eyelids fluttering shut, but you don’t sleep quite yet. Not before you can think about how this is your life now, sleeping in a foreign bed in a foreign place with a foreign husband upstairs. This is what you will be living in now. Now and forever. 

Living with Taehyung is, in both the best and worst ways possible, like living with a roommate that doesn’t give a shit about the fact that they live with another person. It’s good, because you and Taehyung hardly see each other and speak even less, which was pretty much the only thing you were asking for when it came to living with him. But it also sucks, because whenever you do happen to cross paths, Taehyung acts like you don’t exist, barely sparing you a hello or even that tight-lipped smile you send to drivers on the road when they let you cross the street. 

Not that the two of you ever engaged in energetic conversation before you got married. But at least the two of you would acknowledge each other, even if only to shoot a glare and a scowl the other’s way from opposite sides of a hotel ballroom. Maybe it’s just because it’s him, but you did always find yourself actually relishing in those little interactions with Taehyung. In this strange, twisted way, it seemed to provide some sort of continuity to your ever-changing life. Like no matter what happened, at least you would know that the two of you would always despise each other. 

To be frank, right now you’re not sure if Taehyung even remembers he got married at all.

Nights have been a lot more sleepless since your wedding day. After two weeks, the reality of it has finally started to settle in. This is your life now. And ever since you realized that, your bed has felt much less comfortable. 

“But the place is nice, right?”

You look around the living room from where you’re sat on the sleek, white suede leather couch, eyes glossing over the bookshelves, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the draping velvet curtains. From here, you can see the entire city skyline, flecks of gold from the windows of skyscrapers against a navy blue background. Slowly, as the moon creeps over the sky and the clock gets later and later, those lights will soon begin to flicker off, one by one. 

“Yeah, it’s not bad.” Nothing to write home about. That is, if home were a place other than here. 

“That’s good. At least you don’t live in, like, a total dump or anything,” Victoria says on the other end of the line. “How’s Taehyung?”

His name alone elicits this deeply-exhausted sigh from your lips, like it’s been ten years since you married and every day has felt worse than the last. “Fine.” You can’t really complain about anything yet, considering that you hardly ever see the man. 

“Just ‘fine’?” Victoria sounds skeptical. 

“Yeah,” you draw out the word, as if trying to convince yourself of its truth. “I mean, it’s like he doesn’t even live here. I barely see him. And when I do, we don’t even speak to each other.”

“That’s good though, isn’t it? You hate him.” Victoria says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And in a sense, it kind of is. 

“I mean…”

“I know that your life hasn’t exactly… gone the way you had planned, but isn’t this your best case scenario when considering everything?” She asks. “If Taehyung is as distant as you say he is, isn’t it almost like you never married him in the first place?”

As if on cue, you hear footsteps coming down the stairs, heels clicking on the marble as they make their way to the entrance. You whip your head around to find Taehyung, all dressed up in loose, flowy slacks and a flowery silk button-down, strolling down the staircase as he scrolls through his phone, paying you zero attention whatsoever. 

He notices you briefly when he reaches the bottom, meeting your eyes with his own. He offers this measly, unenthused half-smile your way before he grabs his wallet and some house keys from the table by the entrance, opens the door, and vanishes off into the night. 

If you hadn’t been in the living room, you probably wouldn’t have even realized he left. Not that you being present as he’s planning on leaving would have stopped him anyway. This is the sixth night he’s done this in the past two weeks. You could stand by the door and stare him down as he emerges from his bedroom, all dressed up for something you’re definitely not invited to, and he would offer you that same goddamn smile and walk out the door without even blinking. Who he was before you got married and who he is now are no different. Not even a ring could change that. 

“I guess,” you tell Victoria. At least Taehyung hasn’t turned into a helicopter husband. “I don’t know. Maybe I just wish that I didn’t have to deal with him at all.”

Wish you could turn back time. Wish you could worm your way out of an arranged marriage before it was too late. Wish you could go back to the way things used to be. 

You and Victoria talk for another couple of minutes before she regretfully has to end the call, citing both her beauty sleep and an 8AM meeting tomorrow morning as her reasons for hanging up. The moment you put the phone down, you sink back into the couch cushions, staring out the windows at the world below you.

Here’s the deal. What Taehyung does in his free time is none of your business. But also, it’s totally your business, because you are his spouse. A spouse who is an equal amount in the public eye as he is. What he does and does not do has a direct impact on what you do and do not do. 

It’s no secret that when you catch Taehyung sauntering down the stairs looking like a Gucci runway model, it’s not because he’s planning on catching a movie with a college friend and then playing video games for four hours on a couch in a basement. He is going out. To clubs, to parties, to exclusive events that he’s been invited to by his equally-rich friends, all of whom are acting like he’s the same bachelor he’s always been. 

And maybe that’s the real problem with your whole marriage—other than the glaringly obvious issue that it’s a marriage wholly unwanted by the two parties involved in it. Despite the ring on his finger, Taehyung is going out and pretending that nothing in his life has changed while you’re trapped at home, desperate to save you and your family’s reputation by keeping as low a profile as possible. You would give anything to march around the city all day, flashing middle fingers at paparazzi as you shop at your favorite high-end stores and frequent your favorite clubs. But you can’t, because your family’s fortune and influence is on the line. 

And apparently, Taehyung’s isn’t. 

It sort of makes you wonder why it was even Taehyung you ended up marrying anyway. His family isn’t any richer or more powerful than yours. Your spheres have always been sufficiently separate. What was it about him, and perhaps more importantly, his family that drew your parent’s eye? And what was it about marrying you that prevented him from saying no? Money? Prestige? Influence?

You suppose you’ll never know. But whatever mystical force that convinced Taehyung to agree to this must not be as important to him as your reasoning is to you, because it’s become exceedingly apparent that Taehyung does not care that he’s married. He doesn’t care about the ring on his finger, he doesn’t care about his public image, and he most certainly doesn’t care about you.

Perhaps you were naive for thinking this, but you actually believed marriage might tone him down a little. Might age him into a real adult with real world obligations. Instead, it’s only given you a firsthand look into who Kim Taehyung has been and always will be: a selfish rich kid.

You don’t bother waiting around in the living room until he gets back, but you are still awake by the time you hear the door creak open. Taehyung makes no efforts to hide his return. You can hear him chattering loudly on the phone as he stumbles up the stairs, can tell from his gait alone that he is most certainly wasted. You don’t want to know what he did tonight. You’ll probably be able to figure it out anyway when you wake up tomorrow morning and check your social media. 

What were you thinking, marrying him? That he would change? That he would suddenly become someone that you could rely on? You had no choice when you said, “I do,” but you were at least hoping that maybe one day, one day in a long, long time, the two of you would finally see eye to eye. Maybe there would even come a time when you would genuinely love him. How foolish. 

You close your eyes and try to imagine a world where you have married someone you love, someone who loves you back.

Not unlike the many nights preceding it, tonight is sleepless. 

Unlike your marital status and general disposition, one thing that hasn’t changed about you is your love for extravagant events. Call you conceited, but there is something so much fun about putting on a fancy, expensive dress that you love and getting your hair and makeup done before going to an exclusive gala and posing in front of five hundred cameras. 

Actually, now that you think about it, maybe your wedding could have actually been pretty good, considering it let you do all those things. It’s a real shame there happened to be a storm cloud in the form of Kim Taehyung there to ruin it. Otherwise, you think you would have rather enjoyed that day. 

Tonight is the first event since your marriage where you and Taehyung are both required to show up and act like a happy married couple. Which would probably be a lot easier if you and Taehyung had exchanged more than ten words over the past two weeks. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but there was a part of you that thought you could use your arranged marriage to actually cultivate some sort of meaningful relationship between the two of you. So events like these wouldn’t be such a drain on both of you. 

When Kim Taehyung comes down the stairs, he actually doesn’t look too bad. You don’t know why this sort of thing keeps catching you off guard—like you don’t expect him to look that good whenever you see him. The problem is that you can’t even chalk up the surprise to him wearing tailored clothes or having his hair done. He just looks… good. 

Well, you suppose you do have to look at him every day for the rest of your life. It’s a good thing he’s attractive. At least he’s not sore on the eyes. 

Taehyung and his unfortunate attractiveness aside, the two of you don’t say a word to each other as you join up at the entrance, grabbing any last-minute items like house keys, chapstick, and whatever dignity you have left to spare. You send forced smiles and tight nods each other’s way in the elevator, staring straight ahead in the lobby of your building as the car pulls up to the front door.

By the time the two of you sit down in the back of the limousine, the built-up tension between the two of you is so thick you’re almost positive that even the chauffeur can feel it through the closed partition. 

If you were any more idyllic, you’d probably spend the drive over to the gala staring out the window and imagining yourself in a different life, on a train to nowhere, flowers in your hair and a journal in your hands. Or perhaps you’d be the CEO of your family’s company instead of having that responsibility passed down to a husband you don’t even want, sitting in an office at the top of a skyscraper overlooking the city. Anything. Anything but this.

But the idyllic part of you died when you realized that fantasies like that are nothing but distractions and that daydreams are for romantics and optimists and losers. 

“What’s our plan for tonight?”

Taehyung scoffs. “What do you mean, ‘what’s our plan’?”

You frown. “Well, we’re married, so we at least have to act like it, don’t you think?”

“Isn’t standing there and smiling enough?” Taehyung asks, an unimpressed eyebrow raised. 

You bristle. Maybe that sufficed for your wedding, but there was so much going on it was easy to distract yourself from the gravity of it all. But this event is not about you. It’s not even about either of your families. It’s about someone the two of you are, at best, distantly connected to, through work, through fame, through power. Which means that though the focus will not be on you, there will still be eyes looking your way. Eyes watching your every move. 

“Do you think it will be?” You challenge. Doesn’t Taehyung realize that things are different now?

Taehyung’s lips curl downwards. “What do you expect us to do, shower each other in kisses? We don’t even sleep on the same fucking floor.”

“Maybe I just expected you to act less like a stranger and more like a husband!”

Taehyung sighs. “Don’t.” The word is clipped, short. “Don’t tell me you actually want to be married.”

“I don’t.” It’s a response that you hardly have to think twice about. “But we are, and nothing can change that.” Unfortunately. But it’s a fact that you and Taehyung have both had to grapple with over the past few weeks, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that you are more aware of it than he is. If Taehyung could have his way, he would ignore you for the rest of his life and keep partying with the rest of his bachelor friends until he keeled over and died. 

He huffs next to you, eyes staring straight ahead. You don’t think the two of you have met each other’s eyes in a week. Maybe more. They’re starting to feel as soulless as your marriage itself. “Whatever. What do you want me to do?”

“What do you think?” You cross your arms over your chest. “Just act like you don’t hate me. Can you do that?” The way Taehyung’s behaving right now, you expect that will be a challenge for the both of you.

“Only if you can. I’ll even hold your hand to prove that we love each other.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

The idea of holding Taehyung’s hand makes you want to implode. The mere thought sends shivers down your spine. But it’s better than nothing, and that’s good enough for you. At least you won’t have to kiss. 

The rest of the ride there is silent. You drive to this gorgeous mansion just outside the city, bathed in lights hidden amongst the bushes, illuminating both the architecture and the enormous fountain that sits in front of it. In a house this size, you imagine you could probably go your whole life without ever having to come across Taehyung. It actually makes you consider investing in a home that big. 

Taehyung helps you out of the back of the limousine, a cold hand clasping your own as you rest your palm against his. You can feel the way his fingers hesitate as yours make to intertwine with his as you walk towards the entrance, smiling at whatever camera flashes you encounter on your way. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were holding hands with a ghost. 

The moment you step inside and are ushered out of the door’s view, Taehyung’s grip relaxes on yours. For a moment, you think he’ll actually spend the rest of the night like this, a gentle hand wrapped around yours, but then he pulls it away entirely and shoves it back into his pocket. Oh. You frown quietly to yourself. So that’s how tonight’s going to go. 

You don’t make an effort to reach out towards him again. 

For an event concerning people you don’t know a damn thing about, everyone sure seems to know things about you. Other than greetings, you don’t think anyone’s said anything to you about anything other than your recent marriage to Taehyung. Every conversation is punctuated by a Congratulations! you do not feel that you have at all earned, considering you and Taehyung could barely look at each other on the way here.

Maybe Taehyung was right. All you really can do is stand there and smile.

“Oh, don’t tell me… Y/N, is that you?”

The champagne swirls around in the flute between your fingers as you turn towards the sound of your name, looking up to see a familiar face headed your way. 

Kim Seokjin is nice enough. He’s terribly handsome and got a flawless smile, but you know better than to trust those pearly whites of his. The sight of him alone is enough to make your body tense up. There was a reason you had explicitly told your parents not to invite him to your wedding. 

“Seokjin, what a surprise to see you here,” you say, forcing a smile. “I thought you were supposed to be in Switzerland right now.”

“Change of plans,” Seokjin grins back in that awful, awful way, the kind of grin that makes you feel like he’s looking right through you. “I came back early. It’s a shame, though, I missed your wedding.”

You shrug. “It was a humble affair.” It wasn’t. And you’re positive that Seokjin knows it wasn’t an accident that you didn’t extend an invitation to him or his family. 

“Ah, I see,” Seokjin says, nodding his head. He turns to Taehyung next to you, who is making no effort to hide how wholly uninterested in this conversation he is, and holds out a hand. “You must be Kim Taehyung, then. I’m Kim Seokjin. Congratulations on your wedding.”

Taehyung shakes his hand firmly, the air between the three of you growing unbearably palpable. 

“Seokjin’s father is the VP of News Daily,” You explain, eyebrows raised as you try to signal to Taehyung what exactly it means when Seokjin is speaking to the two of you. “And his mother is a popular journalist for the city’s post.”

Seokjin grew up in the world of media, and it seems he’s picked up his parent’s affinity for sticking their noses in places they don’t belong. You know he’s not talking to the both of you out of the goodness of his heart. 

Seokjin laughs, his hand waving away the mention of his parents. “Oh, please. That’s them. I’m just a bored socialite like the rest of you.”

You resist the urge to scoff. 

“Marriage treating the two of you well?” He changes the subject to what he really wants to talk about: you. 

“Of course,” you say quickly, preventing any hesitation on your end. Your empty hand reaches towards Taehyung’s, fingers searching for his between the two of you. But his refusal to join hands does not go unnoticed by you nor Seokjin, who is eyeing the space between your bodies with an eyebrow raised. “It’s just been—well, it’s just been difficult to adjust to a new life. That’s all.”

If you were to describe the face of a non-believer, it would be the exact expression on Seokjin’s face. “Perfectly understandable,” he says, that same toothy smile lacing his features. “But it must be nice, you know, to marry someone you love.”

“I couldn’t be happier,” you say, almost challenging Seokjin to say something even more inflammatory. He must know that all you’re trying to do at this point is save face. Love? Ha! As if. 

“And Taehyung?” Seokjin motions to your husband. 

You can feel the way Taehyung is stiffening beside you. “I suppose we are both lucky and unlucky in many ways when it comes to who we love.”

It’s enough of an answer to get Seokjin off your tail. For now. He bids the two of you a tense goodbye before sauntering off to go poke his nose in someone else’s business, fish for drama, a thread of a rumor he can pick apart with nimble fingers. You wonder if anybody actually likes him. 

The moment he disappears from earshot, you grab Taehyung’s wrist tightly and pull him close to you. “What the hell was that?” You hiss into his ear. 

“What?” You can’t tell if he’s playing dumb or if he really is that dense. 

“You!” You exclaim. “Kim Seokjin is the one person who could easily expose how fake this marriage is and you pull away from me? Right in front of him? You can’t even hold my hand for two seconds, that’s how much you hate me?”

“Who cares what he thinks?” Taehyung says. “He’s just another media rat. No one will even remember we were here tomorrow.”

“But if you keep acting like this, people will start to notice! Why can’t you just act like you don’t hate me, for one night? Is that so bad? Is it that torturous, to spend one night with me?”

“Do not turn this on me,” Taehyung orders harshly. “You’re making a scene. Come on.”

You don’t have time to shout at him for bossing you around like you’re a toddler throwing a tantrum before he drags you out of the venue, the two of you finding a back door to the building that leads outside. The cold air blows against your body, goosebumps popping up against your skin, but you find that the chilly night provides quite the respite after practically overheating indoors. Taehyung makes fire rush through your veins but at least the air can cool you back down. 

Nevertheless, your conversation is not over. It’s just been moved to a more private location.

“You do realize that our marriage isn’t going to suddenly go away, right? That we’re going to have to keep doing this for the rest of our lives?” You remind him, eyebrows raised. There’s a part of you that genuinely thinks he’s completely forgotten that your marriage is permanent.

“Oh, and not holding hands for five minutes for this one event is totally going to change the course of our lives, isn’t it?” Taehyung fights back.

“Don’t act like you did the right thing,” you spit out. “You don’t have to pretend in front of me. I know you don’t give a shit about our marriage.”

“What marriage is there to even give a shit about? Just because we had a wedding and signed some documents does not mean there is a real marriage between us. Look at us,” he motions between the two of you like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “We hate each other. Is this what you would call marriage?”

“But at least I’m trying to get past that!” You exclaim. “You make it seem like being as miserable as possible is some sort of badge of honor. Do you actually want to spend the rest of your life hating the person you married? Or do you want to grow up and try and move on?”

Taehyung frowns. “What I want is for the person I married to stop acting like they’re doing me such a huge favor by pretending to care about us. Especially when all they really care about is their family’s goddamn reputation.”

“No,” you tell him sternly. You are doing him a favor. He just can’t admit that he actually needs help from you. “You are putting zero effort into this. What am I supposed to do?”

“Let it go!” Taehyung shouts. “Maybe one day we’ll actually start getting along, but right now it’s obvious that neither one of us can stand the other. I don’t need you to do favors for me. I can handle it myself.”

You look away, rolling your eyes. “Doesn’t look like it to me,” you mutter to yourself. 

Taehyung cracks. “Fine. You want me to pretend that I actually care about us? I will.” Thank God. Maybe now the two of you will finally start seeing eye-to-eye. “But make no mistake about how I feel about you,” he spits. “Getting married to you ruined my life.”

You stare straight at him and his eyes are swirling, so obscured in the darkness of the night that you might even think he doesn’t have a soul at all. His pupils bore into yours and for once, for once in your goddamn life, after so many years of staring each other down at debutante balls, so many years of witty refrains and snarky insults hurled each other’s way, it feels like the two of you might actually snap. 

Then, a camera flashes.

Trouble in Paradise! would be a suitable title for the front page of the city’s biggest tabloid… if anything about your life with Taehyung could be considered paradise. Unfortunately for the both of you, that is not the case. 

You don’t need to keep reading the rest of the trashy article on the front page of the daily tabloid to know how much trouble you’re in, nor do you even have time to scroll beneath the terrible photo of you and Taehyung literally shouting at each other before you hear your phone ring. 

You don’t even bother saying hello to whoever’s on the other end. You know it’ll go in one ear and out the other. 

“I assume you know why I’m calling,” your mother’s harsh tone spits from the other end of the phone. There’s no doubt in your mind that she’s standing in the middle of her office, snapping her fingers at her fifteen secretaries as they partake in the worst damage control your family’s had to deal with since your cousin two years ago was caught with a mistress outside a high-profile restaurant. 

“Can I take a wild guess?” You’re about to be scolded into the next century, so you might as well enjoy your last few moments. 

“Don’t get cheeky with me,” your mother warns. “Care to explain why you and your beloved husband made the front page of the Daily Post today?”

“I know,” you sigh, a hand coming up to rub at your temples. It’s eight in the morning, you’ve barely looked at your phone, and you haven’t even brushed your teeth yet. It feels like you’re still asleep, and most certainly lack the energy to deal with this right now. 

Your mother, on the other hand, thinks otherwise. “You know? You know, and you still go out and do this? For everyone to see?”

“We tried to take our argument outside,” you begin to explain, but your mother isn’t having a single word of it. 

“The fact that you thought it was even appropriate to have an argument in a public setting at all astounds me, Y/N. We raised you better than that.” There’s no need for you to even see her face. You’ve grown so used to that disappointed frown over the years that it’s burned into your brain. 

“Maybe you should have thought about that before marrying me off to a man I barely know so I could be someone else’s problem instead of yours,” you bite. 

“We did this for your own good,” she hisses back. “You are married because we love you, and we want you to succeed outside of this family.”

“Then why do you care what the tabloids print about me?”

“Because being married does not mean you are no longer a part of this family,” your mother informs you sternly, lips smacking together. “Your marriage reflects on all of us, and you know that. What will people think of us when they see how terribly behaved you are?”

“Everyone acts like that, and you know it.” How could your mother preach good behavior when everyone, everyone you know, is just as spoiled and entitled as you? There’s no such thing as being altruistic when it comes to people like you. Being genuine, and good, and pure—that will get you ruined. 

You can hear her breathing into the phone when your mother responds, “But not in public, and that is the point. We expect better from you.”

“If you were so worried about me behaving so badly, then why did you even marry me off anyway? You knew that I didn’t want to. What did you think would happen?” It’s a question you wouldn’t have dared ask three months ago. Hell, even a year ago, when it was first revealed you were to be engaged, you wouldn’t have dared open your lips. But things are different now. You’re married to a man that hates you just as much as you hate him. He is making no effort to improve your relationship and seems hellbent on despising you forever. There is no way to get out of it. And if your parents really foresaw all of that, then what was the point in the first place?

“Your grandmother.”

Your mouth shuts. 

“You know she wanted to see you married before she passed,” your mother says, words clipped and biting and harsh. “She cares about you. She wanted to make sure you’d be taken care of.”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” you mutter to yourself like a petulant child. In a way, you sort of are.

“If you want to stay in her will, I suggest you change that mindset.”

You freeze in your tracks. The will?

“Is that a threat?” You ask, positively dumbfounded. Are you being coerced into staying in this marriage because of your grandmother’s will?

You can hear your mother laugh, that muted, knowing chuckle of hers. “It was the deal all along, remember?”

Vaguely, you do. You remember fighting your parents tooth and nail over getting married until your grandmother revealed it was her dream to see you wed. You remember the look on her old, wrinkled face, that soft, sad smile that said she knew she didn’t have much time left. You remember agreeing, because how could you deny her? You remember her promising to remember what you’re doing for her. 

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“But—”

“That’s the end of this conversation, Y/N. You fix things with your husband or you’re out of her will. She’s made that clear. I expect you’ll make the right choice.”

She hangs up. 

Well. 

There are a lot of ways to describe how you’re currently feeling, and you most certainly had an expensive education that would provide you with plenty of the vocabulary, but you think the most appropriate words for the current situation would be: you’re fucked. 

At least the feeling is mutual. 

Hardly two minutes after your mother’s brutal phone call, Taehyung comes storming down the stairs, hair still mussed from the night prior, his own phone clenched tightly between is fingers. Even from where you stand in the middle of the living room, you can see the way his eyes are glinting with anger, the veins popping out from his skin. 

“I just got off the phone with my parents,” Taehyung begins, not even bothering to spare a ‘good morning’ your way, “and they are fucking furious about last night.”

You shrug. “Join the club,” you mutter, arms crossed in front of you. What, does Taehyung really think you got off scot-free?

“Don’t act like this means nothing to you,” Taehyung says as he approaches you, footsteps calm despite his demeanor being anything but. “You’re the one who’s so obsessed with keeping up their family’s perfect reputation. You’re the reason we’re even in this mess in the first place.”

“What do you mean, ‘I’m the reason’?” You ask, astounded. Like he’s totally absolved of all blame and just an innocent third party. “You are the reason we went outside. You are the reason we had that argument, because you refuse to accept the fact that we’re actually married and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Right, because holding hands is really gonna show all those people how in love we are. I bet your parents are so thrilled right now.” Taehyung drawls. 

“It’s a start!” You shriek. “God, you’re just so—so infuriating! You can’t accept that this was your fault, too. You just have to turn everything against me and you always, always have to get the last word. It’s like you think you’ll die if you don’t.”

“Like you’re any better,” Taehyung huffs back. “You think I’m the villain because I don’t want to pretend to be in love with someone I’m not in love with. You act like us not holding hands is going to ruin our lives. It was one event! One! It’s obvious we hate each other, so why even try?”

“What, do you expect me to just sit around and do nothing? To act like everything’s fine? Like I’m happy?” As if. This marriage is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. “While you prance around the city with your rich boy friends, going out to clubs and parties and pretending that I don’t exist? Is that what you expect from me?”

Taehyung laughs, this loud, disbelieving sort of noise, like he’s never heard such nonsense before. “Just because we’re married doesn’t mean the rest of my life has to change. Am I not allowed to enjoy myself with my friends? Or are you determined to keep me chained to your side for the rest of our lives?”

“What I want,” you punctuate every word, “is for you to stop acting like you haven’t got stakes in this, too. You think I don’t know how your family works? What being married to me means for you? Because I do. And I know that if we were to divorce, it would be you who would get the short end of the stick. Make no mistake.”

That’s enough to shut Taehyung up for a good few seconds. And it shuts him up, because he knows it’s true. Taehyung’s family may have a little more money, a little more power than yours, but you’ve got a family intimately more connected with the media. One phone call and Taehyung may have a rather messy, rather public breakup to deal with. 

“You wouldn’t,” he says, calling your bluff. 

“Are you sure about that?” You say, sticking your ground. You would never really divorce him, of course, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“I am,” Taehyung says firmly. “Don’t think I don’t know what being married to me is in it for you. What is it? Money? Power? Your father’s CEO position?”

“That’s none of your business,” you snap quickly. Maybe you’re more transparent than you thought. Bristling, you straighten your shoulders and turn back to meet his eyes. “Regardless, it seems we both have a reason to stay in this marriage.”

“It seems we do,” Taehyung agrees with a thin, contained smile. “Then I suppose we can reach some sort of agreement.”

“As in…?” Your interest in piqued. 

“I’ll stop going out with my friends if you stop picking fights with me all the time,” he says economically, like he’s killing two birds with one stone. 

“Only if you agree to also act more like my husband when we’re in public,” you tack on, because you just can’t settle for anything less. 

“Public only,” Taehyung specifies. 

You scoff. “Like I’d even want to pretend to be your wife when we’re in private.”

“Good. It seems we’ve come to a deal.”

“What’s in this for you, huh?” You prod, just to be annoying. Taehyung’s right. There’s a reason you’re not divorcing him the second you get the chance. But there must be a reason why he’s not doing the same thing. 

“Does it matter?” He challenges, a single eyebrow raised. “My life is just as awful as yours.”

Fair enough. 

“Do we have a deal?” Taehyung asks, holding out his hand, that sneaky, devilish grin lacing his features. 

Taking his hand in yours and grasping it firmly is the easiest decision in the world. His palm presses against your own, hot hand meeting your cold skin, and it feels like the two of you are finally finding some sort of balance. You look up into his eyes, burn your gaze into his pupils, watch them glint in the white ceiling light of the living room. 

“Deal.”

For two people raised on the values of reading the fine print and making educated choices when it comes to business deals, you and Taehyung sure haven’t worked out any of the intricacies of the deal the two of you agreed to. Unlike those business deals your parents constantly agreed to, however, knowing all of the stipulations and provisions of your strange, strange agreement with Taehyung may prove more harmful than helpful. 

Like right now. 

“Wait, we don’t have to be by each other’s side the whole night, do we?” Taehyung asks you, eyebrows furrowed in a knot, as you sit in the back of a big, black van on your way to a mutual friend’s twenty-first birthday bash. 

“There are going to be a lot of cameras there,” you respond. 

“Yeah, outside the entrance to the damn club. You know they won’t be allowed in, so who cares?” Taehyung rebukes. 

You huff out a little sigh, not wanting to get into an argument when you’re literally minutes away from your first public appearance since the whole tabloid debacle from three weeks ago. You and Taehyung could both do with being a bit more relaxed than you normally are when you’re around each other. 

“Hasn’t Clarissa invited hundreds of people? They’ll all notice if we aren’t together,” you remind pointedly. The girl whose birthday party you are attending is an heiress who grew up on the money of two people with a monopoly over the current artificial intelligence market and has millions of followers on social media. There will be notable people there. And people will know the two of you, as well. 

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “That’s the point, Y/N. There’ll be so many people, no one will even care. It’s her twenty-first birthday. Do you think people are going to be sober?”

You purse your lips together. He’s got a point. “How about when we are together, we hold hands. But if you see a friend or something then feel free to say hi.” Taehyung can be afforded that luxury. Especially because the chances of him not bumping into someone he knows is exceedingly low anyway. 

Taehyung nods in agreement. “You too. But I won’t leave you unless I know you’re with someone you’re close with.”

“You don’t have to stay, I’ll be fine,” you say with a small chuckle. What, is Taehyung suddenly worried, or something?

“Yeah, but it would be in bad taste if I left you with someone you didn’t know well. Or alone. Just wanna make sure you’re taken care of.” He shrugs nonchalantly, turning back to look out of the window on his side of the car. 

“Okay.” 

You don’t really have anything else to say to that. You’re sure you can handle yourself if you’re left alone for a few minutes while Taehyung says hi, but you actually find yourself rather appreciative of his resolve to look after you. Or, at least, make sure someone else is looking after you. It’s quite… chivalrous. Strikingly out of character for the Taehyung you’ve become well-acquainted with over the past couple of months. 

By the time you arrive, it’s obvious that Taehyung was right about there being so many people you two practically don’t even exist. Other than the herds of camera crews waiting outside the joint, photographing everyone that steps out of a black car to see what they’re wearing and who they’ve come with, no one seems to be paying you any attention. And in a way, that sort of nonexistence, that anonymity, it’s refreshing. Your entire life you’ve felt like all eyes were on you, like there was constantly a spotlight above your head, but here, the party centers around someone else. 

Despite that fact, Taehyung keeps his promise. He keeps himself pressed closely against you when there’s not enough space for you two to stand side by side, and he makes sure to have a hand gently intertwined with your own as you weave your way through the dozens of bodies in the room. He doesn’t say anything, of course, always looking up and forward instead of beside him, where you stand, but you find that you’re actually quite relaxed with his presence. He spots a bit of a clearing near the back of the first floor of the club, where a whole bunch of leather couches are pressed up against the brick walls, where the two of you can take a breather. 

“Damn, Clarissa knows a lot of people,” you say when you finally settle down, happily plucking a martini from a tray held by one of the many caterers wandering through the venue. 

“I doubt she’s even spoken to half of them,” Taehyung comments. “She and I have maybe spoken once… three years ago.”

“It was enough to get you invited, wasn’t it?” You point out with an eyebrow raised. 

Taehyung nods, chuckling a little. “Touché,” he says, clinking his own cocktail glass against yours. 

You take a swig of the drink, letting it wash down your throat. You’re not exactly sure how else you’re supposed to survive the night. “You must enjoy this, huh?” You muse, looking up at Taehyung from where you’re seated on the couch. He’s standing next to you, looking around the room with a distant gaze in his eye. 

“Enjoy what? The drink? It’s nice,” Taehyung says, having another sip. 

“No, I mean this,” you say, motioning toward the crowd. “The clubbing, the dancing, the drinking. I’ll bet that if you could do this every day for the rest of your life, you would.”

“I’m honored that you think so highly of me,” he deadpans. 

“Just making an observation,” you say, holding your hand up in surrender. “I mean, isn’t this what you used to do every weekend before we got married? Get wasted and party? Wake up in someone else’s bed the next morning? Muscle your way through the week just so you could do it all over again?”

Taehyung shakes his head, a knowing grin on his face. “Looks like someone keeps up with her tabloids. Let me guess, you would scroll through all of those trashy articles on your phone whenever you woke up so you could see what your future husband was doing?”

“I could have never even met you and I would know that that’s exactly what you do,” you say, even though you definitely did do those things before your engagement was announced to the public. “You’re a heartbreaker, Kim Taehyung. I don’t need to read a tabloid to know that.”

“Well, you must be quite the lucky girl, then,” Taehyung comments. “You seem to be taking up so much of my energy that I don’t have the time for that anymore.”

You place a sarcastic hand on your heart. “I didn’t know you were always thinking about me. I’m touched.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Taehyung huffs out, making the two of you both shake your heads as you chuckle to yourselves. First civil conversation you’ve had with each other in a long while, even if there may have been a few blows exchanged. 

The privacy doesn’t last long. Soon after, a huge crowd of people that could honestly still pass for teenagers herds towards the back of the club, all of them wanting to take pictures with each other. You and Taehyung do your best to stay out of the way, but one of the girls recognizes him from the Elle photoshoot he did about a year ago and begins to strike up a conversation with the both of you about your recent marriage. If she was paying attention to anything the tabloids leaked three weeks ago, she doesn’t mention it. Taehyung smiles and happily answers all of her questions, and even offers to take a picture of the group for them. The conversation ends before the two of you even catch her name. 

You’re standing by the line of buffet tables laid out against the staircase leading up to the second floor, no doubt as crowded as this one, when the opportunity for you to speak to someone other than Taehyung finally presents itself. 

“Y/N!”

You’d recognize that voice anywhere. You turn around to see Victoria barreling towards the both of you, not even caring when she accidentally spills a bit of her piña colada on the floor as she does. 

“Hey!” You exclaim excitedly. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Are you kidding? I’m pretty sure Clarissa invited everyone on her, her best friend’s, her best friend’s cousin, and her best friend’s cousin’s dog’s contact list,” Victoria says with a laugh. “It’s nice to see you. I feel like you’ve been holed up in that big ol’ penthouse for weeks.”

“Damage control,” you remind her succinctly. Victoria knows enough that that’s all the explanation she really needs. 

“I don’t know if the two of you have ever met formally,” you say, thinking back to your wedding, where Victoria spent most of her time schmoozing with your parents (who love her) and didn’t even engage with any of the people who Taehyung’s family had invited. “Taehyung, this is Victoria. Victoria, Taehyung.”

“Pleasure,” Victoria says in that loud, unabashedly forward way of hers, holding out a friendly hand. Taehyung smiles back curtly, taking her hand and shaking it gently, so as not to spill any more of her drink. 

“Mine as well. I remember you were at our wedding.” Oh? So he does know her?

“That I was. Oh, I miss that day. The food was excellent. Tonight’s isn’t too bad either. Hope you’re doing well, the two of you. It’s nice to see you getting along,” she says, always the observer. 

Taehyung’s eyes widen a little when he picks up what Victoria is not-so-subtly putting down, but you place a hand on his upper arm to calm him. “It’s okay,” you tell him. “She won’t say anything.”

“My lips are sealed,” Victoria adds. 

“If you wanna go spend time with some of your friends, you can,” you say, giving Taehyung a nudge. He looks positively helpless standing in between the two of you as Victoria out-extroverts him. 

“Alright,” he says hesitantly, even though you know he’s already spotted at least ten people you’re sure he’d want to spend time with over you. “I’ll come find you soon, okay? Don’t go too far.”

You nod, and Taehyung disappears off into the crowd. Not two seconds later, you hear someone else call his name in a familiar tone. 

“I thought you said you hated him,” Victoria points out as the two of you watch his caramel brown hair makes its way throughout the crowd. 

You take another sip of your drink. “I do,” you say. 

Victoria looks at you like you’ve just told her you’ve sworn off custard-filled doughnuts. 

“What?” You ask, feeling suddenly defensive. 

“Nothing,” Victoria singsongs. “It just doesn’t look like that to me.”

“We just need to keep up a good appearance in public, that’s all. You know how mad my parents got when the tabloids leaked all that shit a few weeks ago,” you explain. You’re not sure what all the fuss is about. Taehyung said he would do these things. And he did. That was him upholding his end of the deal. This is you upholding yours. 

“If you say so…” Victoria says, not looking at all convinced. “I guess I’m just surprised that—that you two seem to be getting along so well. Maybe you being married isn’t going to be the worst thing after all.”

You stare back out into the crowd, scanning the top of people’s heads for Taehyung’s familiar locks. In the dim light of the club, you have a difficult time finding his, squinting your eyes slightly as you look around, but eventually you spot him, dancing happily with some old friends of his you recognize. He looks like he’s having a good time. And that makes you feel like maybe, just maybe, this might end up alright. 

“Yeah,” you say, though with the pounding of the bass and the alcohol already rushing through your veins, it doesn’t really feel like your voice belongs to you. You look back at Taehyung, knowing exactly where he is now, and you smile. Just a little. “I guess he’s not so bad.”

You never do get a chance to meet Taehyung’s friends that night. By the time he joins back up with you and Victoria he’s by himself, a little more drunk than when he left, and ready to go home. And for once, instead of fighting him, instead of insisting you stay an hour more just to make sure you’ve done all of your rounds, you let him take you home. 

Taehyung has been spending a lot more time at the penthouse lately. Perhaps his family’s business happenings are slow, or perhaps he’s actually starting to get more comfortable with inhabiting the same space as you, but he has definitely found himself quite the rhythm in that house of yours. He even comes down to the first floor rather regularly. 

When he’s home, Taehyung is a lot quieter than you thought he would be. Granted, you don’t exactly know what you were expecting in the first place, but it certainly wasn’t him ruminating in one of the home offices while the Beatles play softly on the stereo, nor was it him reading a book in French in one of those big old grandfather chairs in the living room. If you didn’t know any better, you’d probably think he was still absent in that old way of his, ghostlike and silent, like he was occupying the space instead of truly living in it. 

But you do know better, and even though Taehyung is just as noiseless as he used to be, the house already feels a little bit fuller. 

Perhaps the reason you’ve become so keenly aware of his presence over the past few days is because of the notable fact that Taehyung has indeed held up his end of the deal, and no longer goes out with his friends in the evening. Or at all, for that matter. Which strikes you as rather odd, because he’s the epitome of a social butterfly, a thousand contacts in his phone and a whole group of friends he regularly spends time with. Maybe his parents told him to tone down the public appearances, too. And that’s understandable, but don’t they know Taehyung? Can’t they see how much he thrives on social interaction? It almost makes you feel… bad for him. 

To remedy this, you suggest he invite over his friends. Just for a few hours, you swear you won’t mind. 

“Seriously?” Taehyung looks positively shocked when you tell him he can, standing in the doorway of the office he seems to have designated as his own. 

“Yeah, why not?” You say with a carefree shrug. Besides, you’ve never met his friends anyway, and now seems as good a chance as any to introduce yourself. You are his wife, after all. “Unless your parents say you can’t. But it’s not a problem for me.”

“You… don’t mind if I have my friends over for a bit? Honest to God, we’re probably just going to play FIFA for three hours straight,” Taehyung says like it’s some sort of warning. Like the idea of him and his buddies from college are going to sit in the living room screaming at the television, leaving you alone to do literally anything else, is somehow bad. 

You laugh. “It’s fine, really. Call them. I’d actually quite like to meet them.”

Taehyung picks up his phone almost instantly, as if you’ll change your mind in the next five minutes so he better get them over soon, and already you can see the way his face is lighting up, the way his eyes crinkle as he chats to his friends and the way his lips curl upwards when they crack a joke back. Isn’t it obvious? He feeds off of the energy of others. Who are you to deny him such a simple pleasure?

As it turns out, Taehyung’s friends actually end up being quite nice anyway. 

He invites over three, because four people is apparently the perfect number for a hardcore game of FIFA on his Playstation, and they are all very handsome men you have never met before. You suppose like attracts like, after all. 

“You must be Y/N,” says the first one you see when you open the door to let them in. He doesn’t look a day over twenty-one—in fact, he could probably still pass as a college student—and has rather long dark hair that drapes over the sides of his face, covering the edges of his big doe eyes. “I’m Jungkook. This is Jimin and Hoseok.”

“Nice to meet you all,” you say, stepping aside so they can enter.

The shortest one, Jimin, grins in response, and Hoseok, behind him, gives you a wave. It’s refreshing enough as is, not having to exchange formal greetings and shake each other’s hands like you do with everyone else. Hoseok even gives you a bit of a nod, too.“You, too,” he says. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

Oh, have they, now? Interesting. 

“All good things, I hope,” you say awkwardly, forcing a small smile as Taehyung comes bounding into the room, ears perked up at the sound of his friends’ voices. 

“Definitely. Thanks for having us over. We didn’t wanna intrude on the sanctity of your new place,” Jungkook says, gesturing vaguely to the house as a whole. He’s got this excellent, genuine grin on his face, the kind that people who are just happy to be alive always wear. 

Already he’s said enough to charm the shit out of you. Who knew Taehyung’s friends could be so… friendly? “Please, you’re welcome any time. I was just thinking Taehyung was getting a little lonely.”

“There he is!” Jimin shouts excitedly when he spots Taehyung behind the two of you, looking a lot more casual than he normally does when he’s alone with you, having abandoned his usual silky button-down and wide-leg slacks for a loose shirt and some sweatpants. You didn’t even know he had those things in his closet. 

“Hey, everyone’s here!” Taehyung exclaims, just as happy. He squeezes past you to give the three of them a big hug, and it almost makes you feel like you’re intruding on something you shouldn’t be in. Even though this is literally your house. 

“Nice place you got here,” Hoseok comments, eyes drifting around the living room. “Very minimalist, I like it.”

“Sure hope you don’t spill anything on those nice leather couches of yours,” Jungkook says. 

“Yeah, unlike Kook, who has spilled tomato soup on every shirt he’s ever owned,” Jimin jokes, earning laughs from Taehyung and Hoseok and a punch from Jungkook. 

“Moved after we married,” Taehyung says simply, shrugging his shoulders. It’s an easy enough explanation for why it doesn’t look at all lived in. Here’s hoping none of them realize you sleep in different bedrooms. 

“Yeah, congratulations on that, man,” Hoseok says, giving Taehyung a celebratory nudge in the shoulder. “Who’d have thought, out of the four of us, Kim Taehyung would be the first one to settle down.”

The way Taehyung’s body tenses up at that comment does not go unnoticed by you. 

“Seriously, I would have never guessed,” Jimin adds on. “You’re showing us a new side of yourself, Tae. But I’m happy for you.”

Normally, you’d probably take offense at such blatant insinuations that your husband was a former playboy, especially from his equally noncommittal friends. But truthfully, it’s not like you were blind to Taehyung’s transgressions either. And what matters most is the fact that since it was announced publicly, you are the only woman he’s been seen with since your engagement. 

“Me too. You seem to really like her. I’m glad,” Jungkook pipes up, sending a smile your way. You definitely feel like you don’t belong in this conversation. “I think the two of you will be good for each other.”

“Yeah, I hope so,” Taehyung says with a nervous chuckle. His eyes quickly shoot your way, the two of you meeting gazes, your hesitant expressions matching. At least the two of you are on the same page. “Alright, alright, enough,” Jungkook says. “Who’s ready to get their ass kicked in FIFA?”

“You’re on, Jeon. But when I win, you owe me a five-star dinner,” Hoseok challenges. 

“Deal.”

Hoseok, Jimin, and Jungkook immediately crowd towards the couch, and you take that as your cue to leave. But before you can disappear down the hallway, you and Taehyung look awkwardly at each other, hands tied. It’s not like you can say anything to them. 

The truth is that, sometimes, it’s easy to forget that not everyone else knows that your marriage is just for business. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are still people out there that believe you marry for love. 

Isn’t it crazy to think that you used to be one of those people, too?

“Hey,” Taehyung says when you meet up at the bottom of the stairs again. 

“Hey,” you respond. 

“You look nice.”

You scoff a little to yourself. What, are you exchanging compliments now? “Thanks,” you say, looking him up and down. “You’re not so bad yourself.” Like he ever is. 

“I knew you had taste,” Taehyung teases, and it’s the sort of comment that would have earned him a melon ball to the face back when the two of you were teenagers at a debutante ball, but today only earns him a roll of your eyes as you join hands. You don’t have anything big tonight—just a small dinner to celebrate some sort of business accomplishment for your family, which means that all you have to manage is not ending up in some sort of food fight by the end of the night. 

“I didn’t have a choice, did I?” You retort easily as you get into the car. 

You don’t normally speak a lot on the way to events. Not that you ever did, but even as your relationship has slowly faded from pure hatred to attempts at compromise, you both seem to relish in being able to stare out of your respective backseat windows and into the city that surrounds you. Just out of curiosity, about halfway through the ride you look towards Taehyung to see what he’s up to, and find yourself genuinely surprised to see him leaning against the window with his eyes closed. Is he sleeping? A couple more minutes of gazing at him tells you he is, because his body has gone lax and his breathing has evened out, soft snores leaving his mouth. This ride can’t be longer than twenty minutes. Has he not been sleeping well? Up in that enormous second-floor bedroom of his?

He’s awake by the time the car parks outside the restaurant, this fancy name brand steak place that was chosen solely because the biggest beneficiaries of your family’s new business deal are two sixty-year-old men whose entire diet consists of beef and beer. No cameras tonight, just a small family affair. You and Taehyung hold hands as you enter the restaurant and are led to the private room in the back anyway. 

You and him are seated on the far end of the long, rectangular table, alongside all of the other adult children dragged along to celebrate something that has no effect on their lives. But it’s nice, because the space alone prevents your parents from actively speaking with you, and you and Taehyung can stay in your own little bubble, only chiming in for a toast when necessary. 

“What are you going to get?” He asks you, the two of you gazing at the menu. No matter how fancy this place is, all the options seem to boil down to steak, steak, steak, steak, and caesar salad. Classic. 

“Oh, so you actually care now?” You counter, an eyebrow raised in amusement. 

Taehyung laughs. “Aren’t I supposed to?”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, wise to his usual shenanigans. It’s hard to tell if Taehyung really means what he says, or if it’s all for show. But perhaps he’s asking because he’s genuinely curious, since no one else seems to be paying you any attention. 

“The choices on this menu are simply overwhelming,” you say, motioning to the six options in front of you. 

“I know, I’m so torn,” Taehyung jokes, making you huff out a little giggle. At least he’s still got that same sense of humor. 

You both end up going for a pretty classic steak dinner, which neither of the two of you finish because the damn portions are the size of your head. Dinner is, in and of itself, absolutely mindless, all of your parents talking about things that don’t concern you whatsoever, leaving you and Taehyung to your own devices as you desperately try to make the night go by faster. 

At one point, you notice Taehyung’s foot brushing up against yours, the leather of his loafers brushing against the toe of your patent heel. Thinking someone of it, you push back, foot nudging his back to his own chair. It’s not a second later that Taehyung retaliates, the two of you dancing around each other underneath the table. 

If the two of you were any younger, or perhaps any less resigned to your fate, there’s no doubt in your mind you would be attempting to get Taehyung to fall off his chair in an effort to do the same to you. Footsie means war. But when the both of you know that, at the end of the day, you’ll still be going home to the same place, and waking up the next morning in the same house, it doesn’t feel like this is a battle.

It’s just life. 

Eventually, you meet Taehyung’s eyes with a hesitant smile, shoe pressed against his, stuck in ceasefire. And for once, he doesn’t have that devilish look in his eye, that smug little grin on his face that tells you that he’s going to make you regret whatever it is you just did. He’s just smiling back at you, all pink lips, having found real fun in the little things. 

And that makes you happy. 

The rest of the dinner is uneventful, which, in your book, is about as good as a dinner can go. You cheers to the future of your parents’ relationship with their newfound partners and say a quick goodbye to them both, hurrying out of there before they can ask you any questions on your relationship with your husband. But you don’t spend the car ride in silence on the way back. 

Instead, you say, “Have you been sleeping well?”

The question seems to catch Taehyung off guard. He was already getting in position to take a power nap on the ride home, head pressed up against the window of the car. 

“What?”

“Have you been sleeping well?” You repeat. “I noticed you fell asleep on the way here.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess,” he says, a hand scratching the nape of his neck. “I mean, it’s been hard adjusting, I suppose. But I’ll get over it.”

Hard adjusting? You’ve been together for nearly three months now. Three months worth of sleeping in the same penthouse bedroom, on the same soft-as-a-cloud mattress, underneath the same weighted blanket. And he’s still having trouble? 

“Oh. I mean, I just wanted to ask because you seem really tired lately.”

“I got a lot on my plate, what can I say,” Taehyung says with an empty smile, forcing a chuckle. “I’ll be fine, seriously. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Isn’t that my job?” You remind him. “I am your wife.”

Taehyung doesn’t say anything to that. He just lets out an audible breath, the kind you let out when you’re amused and have something snarky to say, but don’t have the energy to get the words off your tongue. 

The rest of the ride is pretty quiet. 

When you get home, you place your house keys in the bowl by the entrance and take off your shoes, just about ready to take a hot shower and collapse in bed, when Taehyung’s voice stops you. 

“Hey,” he begins, almost hesitantly. You look back at him inquisitively. “I was thinking, maybe, if you wanted, we could start sleeping in the same bed?”

You scrunch your nose up. Not in disgust, but in surprise. In bewilderment. What brought this on, all of a sudden?

“Really?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. “I thought we liked the separate bed thing. Gives us privacy.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says with a shrug, “but—I don’t know, it’s stupid. I just thought, you know, since we’re married and all. And it’s been three months.” He looks about two seconds away from backtracking, from shaking his head and going upstairs before you can say anything else. 

“Alright,” you say quickly, nodding your assent. Taehyung’s eyes widen when he hears the word, like he had completely expected you to shut him down the moment he made the suggestion. “If that’s what you want. We can try it.”

“You sure?” He asks, that same hesitant smile from earlier lacing his features. It’s strange. He almost looks… sweet. Nervous. 

You grin back at him. “Yeah, I am.”

Taehyung lets you grab some of your toiletries and your pajamas from your designated bedroom before you head up the stairs together, towards the bedroom he’s claimed for himself. Funnily enough, this is the first time you’ve been in his room. Three months of living together and you haven’t dared step foot on the second floor. 

You don’t know what you were expecting when he opens the door to let you inside. Maybe a room that screamed ‘Taehyung’ a little more than this one does. One that looks like an actual human has been living here. But other than one of his classic silk button-downs draped over a chair, there’s not a shred of evidence someone has actually been sleeping here. You could honestly be fooled rather easily that the shirt, too, is just decoration. 

“You can pick a side,” Taehyung says casually. He grabs his own sleepwear—an old t-shirt and some sweats—and heads into the bathroom to change. 

You wonder why Taehyung has had such a difficult time adjusting. This room is about as lavish as a bedroom can get. And yet. 

Sitting down on the left side of the bed, you begin to remove your own clothes, unzipping tonight’s dress and stepping quickly into your pajamas, hurrying to make sure Taehyung doesn’t catch you half-naked. How funny is that, you think to yourself. You’ve been married for three months and you still can’t bear the thought of Taehyung seeing you without a shirt on. 

When Taehyung comes out of the bathroom, hair all messy and clothes all casual, he grins lazily to himself. “I sleep on the right anyway,” he comments mindlessly. 

Within twenty minutes the both of you are about as ready to pass out as you have ever been, the only lights still on the ones on your respective nightstands. 

“Goodnight,” Taehyung says, reaching an arm over to switch his off. 

“Goodnight,” you tell him, turning off yours as well. And all of a sudden, the room is shrouded in darkness. 

You fall asleep instantly. 

When Taehyung wakes up the next morning, the first thing he says to you is that he hasn’t slept that well in ages. 

“You slept together?” Victoria shrieks, so loud you actually have to move your phone away from your ear as you punch in the code inside the elevator for access to your floor. 

“We did not sleep together,” you emphasize. “Okay, well, we sleep together, as in, in the same bed. But we are fully clothed. And not the slightest bit interested in doing anything other than sleeping.”

“I thought you said you liked having your own space,” Victoria points out. “When was the first time you—uh…” she pauses to find the right words, “shared a bed?”

“A couple weeks ago. It’s really not so bad, I don’t know why you’re so hung up over it,” you say, lips pursed. You squeeze the phone between the side of your head and your shoulder, hands full of shopping bags, the string of the handles burning your skin. Maybe you should look into getting a personal shopper. 

“I’m hung up over it because, for the longest time, you have sworn off Kim Taehyung. Called him dead to you. Insulted him every chance you get.” 

You scoff. You don’t need reminding of how much you hated him, how much you can’t believe you have to spend the rest of your life with him. “It’s different now. We’re married. And he said he wasn’t sleeping well. I felt bad.”

“He wasn’t?”

“Enough about him,” you say, shutting her up. You don’t feel like talking about him with Victoria anymore. “Word through the grapevine says that your parents are actually thinking of letting you start your own company?”

It’s enough to distract Victoria. For the rest of the ride in the elevator, she talks animatedly about a new streaming service her parents are considering letting her launch, under their parent business, of course, but it’s her own company nonetheless. And you’re proud of her. Proud she could do something your parents would never dream of letting you do. Proud she could make that happen. 

You push open the front door with the side of your hip after entering in the security code, phone still snug between your ear and your shoulder, when you hear Taehyung call out your name. 

He comes into view from the kitchen, which surprises you because you have, on multiple occasions, made fun of how much of a disaster chef he is, especially because he’s admitted to you he’s not a very good cook. 

“I made brownies,” he says, holding out a plate of the chocolate treats in front of you. Instinct has you dropping your bags on the floor by your feet and reaching out, but you eye him first, suspicious. 

“I have to go,” you tell Victoria, hanging up before she even gets a chance to object to your sudden departure. “You made these?”

“Yes, I did,” Taehyung says, rather proud. 

“And the kitchen is… still standing?” You ask, skeptical. 

Taehyung frowns at you, clearly unimpressed. “How bad of a chef do you think I am?”

“Pretty bad,” you admit with a shrug. 

Taehyung pouts sadly to himself for a moment. “These are good, I swear. Nothing weird in them like vegetables or anything either. I used a box mix.”

“No wonder they look so nice,” you comment snidely, hesitant hand reaching out to grab one. They feel like brownies. So that’s good. 

“Hey, I was the one who had to crack the eggs and shit. Three eggs! And not one eggshell in the bowl!” Taehyung says, clearly very pleased with himself. 

You laugh at his enthusiasm, taking a bite. It’s good. And exactly what you needed after a long day of shopping. “I’m proud of you. They taste good.”

“I knew you wouldn’t doubt me.” Taehyung grins.

“They’re really good, actually,” You amend, genuinely surprised. And the best part is that you can count at least ten brownies left on that plate, which means that you get at least five more. Which, if you had any less self-restraint, you would probably eat all at once within the day. 

“I’m glad you like them. They’re all for us, you know. No one else to share them with,” he says.

“Honestly, I’m probably going to finish them by tonight. You’ll have to make more tomorrow,” you say sheepishly. 

“We can make some together,” Taehyung suggests. 

“I’m looking forward to it,” you respond. The words come off your mouth easily, tumbling from your lips without you having to think about it. You aren’t saying them because you have to. You’re saying them because you want to. Because baking with Taehyung doesn’t actually sound too bad. Especially if it means more brownies. 

“You’ve, uh, you’ve got something,” Taehyung says, gesturing vaguely to the side of his lip. 

“Oh, I do? Yikes,” you say, a little embarrassed. Your hand comes up to wipe at the left side of your mouth. “Is it gone?”

“Wait, here, let me do it,” Taehyung says, reaching out towards you. He presses his palm against the side of your face, cradling your cheek and jaw in his enormous hands, and all at once it feels like your skin is on fire. 

Your body freezes up at the touch, at the way his thumb swipes at the corner of your mouth, right against your lips, wiping away nothing but a goddamn brownie crumb. You look at him, look right at him, how can you look anywhere else when he’s right in front of you like this, and it feels like you are caught in his gaze, a rain droplet trapped on a web, a bee stuck in its own honey. His big, brown eyes sparkle from the ceiling lights, a chocolate sky that mirrors the food he just made for you. He looks at you and his eyes are so soft, so open, so happy to be looking right back at you. God. 

“There,” he says, a moment too late. 

“Thanks,” you stammer out, speechless otherwise. 

You both stand there, looking at each other, wordless expressions drawn all over your faces, no idea what to do next. 

After a while, Taehyung breaks the silence. “Do you wanna order takeout tonight?”

“Okay,” you nod, still a little breathless. Taehyung smiles before retreating back to the kitchen, leaving you standing in the entranceway, shopping bags abandoned by your side. 

You look over to where he’s vanished. There’s a part of you that wishes he hadn’t left. A part of you that makes you want to see him again. 

Phone calls from your mother are never good. The last time she called… well, you know how that went. So when you see her contact information light up your home screen, it’s only instinct that you feel your heart rate spike. 

“Hello?” The voice that comes out doesn’t even sound like yours. 

There’s no good way to put what comes next. Your grandmother has died. Heart attack. The paramedics got there too late. It was over before it even started. 

For a moment, for a split second, it feels like everything is frozen. Like the world has come to standstill. Your mother’s voice echoes in your ears, suspended in time, the words turning into stone as they crash onto the floor. And when they do, it is as if everything comes back to life. 

Truth be told, you don’t know how long you stay there, sitting on the edge of the left side of the bed, your phone resting lifelessly in the palm of your hand. It feels at once like an eternity and only a second in time. You spoke to your grandmother two days ago. You had promised that you and Taehyung would visit her soon. How can this be happening?

Your phone buzzes relentlessly in your hands, condolences pouring in from every person in your contacts, sorry’s and heart emoticons and If you need anything, I’m always here’s filling up your screen. There’s a part of you that vaguely registers your mother, alongside some of the other members of your family, trying to call you. But nothing can seem to shake you. 

Until—

“Y/N? You still up here?”

You hear Taehyung before you see him. Hear his voice, hear his footsteps, hear the door creak open as he enters your bedroom. Slowly, almost sluggishly, you twist around to look at him, the mere act knocking the wind out of you. Or maybe you were already breathless. 

“Hey, you alright?” Taehyung knows instantly that something is wrong. 

“My grandmother died.” The words sit heavy on your tongue. There’s no point in not telling him. He’ll find out soon enough. He’s… he’s family, isn’t he?

“What?” Taehyung freezes in place. “I—I’m so sorry to hear that, Y/N. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” you say, voice weak but steady. You blink up at him, once, twice, three times, and then suddenly you feel tears running down your cheeks. 

Taehyung doesn’t say anything else. He rushes to your side and sits himself down on the bed next to you, arms wrapping around your body. And you don’t think about the fact that it’s him, about the fact that this is the closest the two of you have ever been. You just let yourself be engulfed in his frame, let yourself be enveloped in his hold as the tears stream down your skin, little hiccups jolting your throat. You close your eyes and press yourself into his arms, head resting against his chest, and wish so desperately that so many things about your life were just a little bit different. 

It must be at least five minutes before either one of you dares to move. Your phone begins to rattle incessantly, that familiar and insistent buzz that the both of you are hard-pressed to ignore. 

“I think you should answer that,” Taehyung whispers into your skin, lips right by your forehead. 

“Yeah,” you sniffle, sitting up next to him and wiping the remnants of wetness by your eyes. Well, Taehyung’s seen you cry. There’s no going back now. “You’re probably right.” You look down at the phone. It’s your father. 

“I’ll be downstairs, okay? Unless you want me to stay,” he offers, looking hesitant. 

You shake your head. “No, it’s—it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

“Call me if you need me,” he makes you give him a nod of understanding before he finally gets up, hands slowly removing themselves from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake. Remnants of warmth. Suddenly, you feel much colder. Hardly a minute later he’s out of the room, and you can hear his distant footsteps as they make their way down the stairs. 

Sighing, blinking, and swallowing all at once, you pick up. 

The call passes by in a blur. Your father says the will will take at least half a year to be executed, but that the funeral is already being planned. Your grandmother had hoped you would eulogize her. You agree, but you have no idea what you will say. He says Taehyung is invited but does not need to come if he cannot make it. He says a lot of other things too, about your mother, about your cousins, about your aunts and uncles and your poor grandfather, who passed five years ago, but you can’t even remember them moments after he’s said them. 

When he hangs up, the tears on your cheeks have dried, patches of them left along your skin. You head to the bathroom, getting off your bed for the first time that day, and try to wash away everything that has stained the morning. A part of you doesn’t even want to bother, just wants to slug downstairs and eat as much sugary cereal as you can get your hands on, but you can’t go down there looking like this. Looking so helpless. 

By the time you reach the kitchen, Taehyung is already standing there, on the opposite side of the counter island, a big stack of pancakes in front of him. They look mouth-watering. 

“Hey,” he says softly. “Thought you might want something to cheer you up.”

“Did you make these?” You ask, a little endeared. That was thoughtful of him. 

“Yeah. They’re still warm,” Taehyung says. He holds out a fork. 

You grin. 

The funeral is a week later. It sucks in every way that something can suck. But not in the same way your wedding sucked, or even the announcement of your engagement. It sucks because it’s a funeral, because you have to stare down your grandmother’s casket when a part of you still doesn’t even believe that she’s gone. Because everyone there is so sad, so melancholy, dressed in all black and looking down at their feet. Because everyone is so sorry for you, so sorry for your loss, everyone has nothing but condolences to offer you. What will those do? They won’t bring her back. They won’t change things. They won’t make you feel even the slightest bit better. 

Taehyung comes. He comes because he offers, and because you want him to. You want someone whose hand to hold. Want someone to smile at you when you’re speaking in front of your entire extended family and trying not to cry. You want someone who is familiar, and warm, and there for you. 

And most of all, you want someone who won’t keep the conversation going when you get home. 

“Do you wanna order Chinese?” He asks, coming into the living room, where you have been sulking on the couch ever since you stepped foot inside the door. 

“That sounds nice,” you force out. 

“Okay. Your usual?”

“Yes, please.” You don’t bother asking how Taehyung already remembers what you like to order when you’ve only gotten Chinese twice in the last three months. 

“I’ll call them.” He disappears off into the kitchen. 

What you do appreciate about Taehyung is how he has defaulted to food as a comfort measure, and how the thought alone genuinely brightens you up a little bit. You don’t know each other very well—still, after three months, you couldn’t even say his favorite color—but he is doing his best, and he is trying his hardest. In some ways, you were unlucky to marry him. To marry someone you didn’t love. To be forced into a union you had no say in, with someone you had so much antagonistic history with. 

But in some ways, your luck has changed. In some ways, marrying him was perhaps the best thing that could happen to you. Taehyung is snarky, a little devilish, and absolutely full of himself, but he is not thoughtless. He is not heartless. He has proven that he is willing to put in the work. That he can grow to care. To change. To compromise. And isn’t that the luckiest thing you could have gotten?

“I’m sure you’re probably sick of hearing people tell you they’re sorry for your loss.”

His voice breaks your reverie, carrying throughout the wide open space of your living room. He’s grinning honestly where he stands, slowly making his way over to you. 

“Kind of, yeah,” you admit. “It’s not going to bring her back. Most of those people probably don’t even mean it.”

“Don’t say that,” Taehyung says, sitting down next to you. “I’m sure they do.”

You look at him skeptically. 

“I mean, they’re sorry for your loss because that loss is causing you pain. And that sucks,” Taehyung explains, albeit a little less eloquently than you thought he would. “I know it sucks for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t like seeing you sad,” Taehyung says honestly, shrugging to himself. 

You scoff a little to yourself. “I would have thought my downfall would be the exact thing the great Kim Taehyung would wish for himself.”

“Maybe a couple of years ago.”

You narrow your eyes. 

“Okay, maybe even a few months ago,” Taehyung admits with a laugh, making you smile, ever so slightly. “But it’s different now. I like it when you’re happy. When you’re snarky and funny and a little evil. Seeing you like this… I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”

“That’s called empathy,” you point out. 

“I’m trying to tell you that seeing you sad makes me sad, stop being a smartass,” Taehyung chides, and that really makes you grin. “There. There’s that smile I was looking for.”

“You’re so annoying,” you say, even though there’s no malice behind it. You give him a little push, palms of your hand pressing lightly against his shoulder as you roll your eyes. 

“Only for you,” he promises. He manages to grab a hold of your wrist as your hand meets his torso, pulling you into him as he wraps an arm around your torso. You gasp a little at the sensation, head falling against his body, fitting snugly in the crook of his neck. He gives your side a comforting rub. “I’m sorry today was so shitty.”

“It was,” you agree. “But Chinese food will make it a little bit better.”

Taehyung looks positively scandalized. “What? ‘Chinese food will make it better’? But not your loving, doting husband?” 

You pretend to think for a little bit, tilting your head up to the sky as you tap your chin with your finger. “Okay. Maybe that, too,” you cave after a bit of waiting, just to be extra bothersome. 

“That’s what I thought,” Taehyung says proudly, looking down at you, eyes sparkling. You can feel his grip tighten as he presses you against his body, letting you rest your head on his side. It feels like the longest hug ever, like you’re wrapped up in a weighted blanket. Only it’s not a blanket. It’s Taehyung. It’s your husband. 

He’s your husband.

“Tomorrow will be better,” he says, and it sounds a lot like a promise. 

You nod against him, letting your eyes drift shut. Things are pretty awful right now. Your grandmother’s dead. The funeral was the saddest family event you have ever attended. You have no idea what’s supposed to happen next. 

But he’s right. He seems to be right a lot these days, actually. 

Tomorrow will be better.

Taehyung lets you sleep in for the next few days. Next several days, actually. Every time you wake up it’s close to noon and your husband is nowhere to be seen, the right side of the bed cold to the touch. It’s nothing to be worried about, though, because you can still see the noticeable dip in the bed from where he lies upon it, sinking his weight into the mattress. Taehyung’s an early bird and you’ve been having fitful nights ever since your grandmother passed. 

Today, you pull yourself out from underneath the covers around noon, sluggish and still tired, squinting as the near-afternoon light streams through the enormous windows of the bedroom. Taehyung must have thought to keep the curtains open today. 

You pull on the first casual clothes you see in your shared closet, some wide-leg sweatpants and a drapey t-shirt, and trudge downstairs like a raccoon to a trash can, hoping to fish through the kitchen cabinets to find something to eat. 

Taehyung is, as far as you can tell, nowhere to be seen. You can’t seem to hear him anywhere, and a part of you wonders where he’s at when you stumble upon the note left on the granite counter. 

Had a meeting downtown, be back around 1! There should be smoked salmon and some cream cheese and bagels in the fridge. 

Taehyung.

You chuckle to yourself as you read his flowy handwriting, amused that he thought to let you know of, of all things, the available breakfast foods in the kitchen. You check the clock. It’s nearly noon. Which means you have just over an hour of the house all to yourself. 

Having the house to yourself for five minutes is infrequent enough as it is, let alone for a whole hour. So often is Taehyung around, somewhere, holing himself up in one of the dozens of rooms or mindlessly wandering down the hallways. And for how much Taehyung is present, the funny part is that you still have no idea what he gets up to most of the time. Despite your voluntary abandoning of the separate bedroom rule, the two of you are still firm proponents of the sanctity of your personal spaces. There are rooms in the penthouse Taehyung has never been in, rooms filled with your clothes and makeup and accessories for when stylists come over before an event. A sewing room that you had specifically asked your parents for, because a part of you never let go of that childhood dream of being a fashion designer. 

And there are rooms in the penthouse that you have never been in. Rooms with dark wooden doors that have always been kept closed, that you have never stepped foot in. It’s not that you aren’t curious as to what Taehyung gets up to. He could have a goddamn evil lair in one of those rooms and you would be none the wiser. But you don’t go, because he doesn’t go into your rooms. Because you two, despite all the vows you have broken, promised each other you wouldn’t.

An hour to yourself is almost a good enough excuse for you to head back up to the bedroom and take a nap. Not that you don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis, or that you even had a fitful night last night—hell, you woke up near noon today and already you want to go back to sleep—but what else is there to do when he’s not around? What new freedoms have suddenly been given to you?

You head back upstairs, much less groggy after that delicious bagel of yours, when you catch a whiff of what smells like wet paint coming from down the hallway. It’s potent and immediately invades your senses, prompting you to wonder if that has always been there, or just magically appeared. Maybe you were so sleepy earlier, you didn’t notice it. 

Well, you notice it now. Unable to help yourself, you start to wander down the hallway, towards the source of the smell. God, it stinks. It takes you back to those days in middle school, when you would spray paint projects inside a tiny little classroom, have to step outside for fifteen minutes while you cracked the windows and aired it out. It gets stronger the further down the corridor you go, like a thick, smelly cloud stationed firmly within the walls of the penthouse. And then you realize where it’s coming from. 

It’s an art studio. 

A very messy art studio, you amend to yourself, as you peek inside. The door is wide open, and all of the windows are popped too, but the extra air circulation doesn’t seem to have made a dent in the scent. And all over the floor, the walls, and the tables are canvases covered in paint, denim jackets and pants and shirts with these wide, unafraid brushstrokes. Open cans of spray paint lie discarded on the hardwood floor stained with splotches of red, yellow, and green. 

Is this what Taehyung does in his free time? Is this where he goes, this bright, sunny room at the end of the second floor hallway? Is this what he is making?

You look down in awe at the clothes resting on the floor, splayed out to maximize dry time. Abstract faces, landscapes, and words are painted onto the backs of jackets, the fronts of old white t-shirts. What hasn’t made it onto the clothes has been put on canvases instead, blurs of color mixed together in this purposeful pattern, confidence emanating from every stroke, every dot. It’s not art in the way that the gorgeous landscapes of Monet, the picture-perfect portraits of Kahlo, the messy, unplanned splatters of Pollock are. It’s art in a different way. In a Taehyung way. 

Who knew he loved it so much? 

You almost feel like an invader encroaching on his territory when you lean down to start cleaning up some of the mess, throwing out empty spray-paint cans and tossing out grey paint water. You don’t dare touch any of the work, don’t dare try to move it. You do what you can, washing out the brushes resting in the water and cleaning up the wet splotches of paint on the hardwood. Over time, the thick scent of still-wet paint slowly fades, disappearing out the window as the fresh afternoon air seeps in. And you stand there, in a room full of art, in a room full of pieces that Taehyung has undoubtedly poured his heart into creating, and you smile to yourself. 

That’s how Taehyung finds you ten minutes later, peering into the room after declaring that his meeting had ended early. 

“Thought I’d find you in here,” Taehyung says with a grin as you jump at the sound of his voice, eyes widen when you turn around to see him standing by the door. 

“Oh, hey,” you say sheepishly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Maybe because this is the farthest room in the house from the front door,” Taehyung teases lightly, coming up behind you. “I see you found my studio.”

“I know I’m not allowed in here,” you admit. 

Taehyung scoffs. “Who says?”

“Didn’t we both agree on that?”

He shrugs. “Sort of. I think we just reached an unspoken understanding we wouldn’t invade each other’s personal space. But it was not in the fine print, no.”

“The fine print of what?”

“That deal we made.”

Right. That deal you made, four months ago, That deal, where the two of you agreed to pretend to be in love with each other during public appearances so you wouldn’t get burned at the stake by your families. Where the two of you agreed not to interact with each other otherwise because you hated each other so much. 

“Oh, yeah,” you say distantly, feeling naive for already forgetting about it. It doesn’t seem to have slipped Taehyung’s mind whatsoever. 

“It’s okay, I don’t mind that you’re up here,” Taehyung says, interrupting that piercing little voice in the back of your head that is asking you why on earth you forgot about that deal in the first place.

“Yeah, I—” You scratch at the nape of your neck, trying to find the words to say. “It just smelled like paint, so I wanted to see what you get up too. And it’s this, apparently.” You motion vaguely to the entire room.

“You sound… surprised,” Taehyung muses correctly. 

“I guess I am,” you surmise. “I’m rather impressed, too, actually.”

“Really?” It’s Taehyung’s turn to sound surprised. 

“Yeah,” you tell him honestly, looking into his eyes. “I—you know, I just came in here because the entire hallway smelled like wet paint and I wanted to know why. But I didn’t know you loved art so much.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Taehyung points out. 

You suppose that’s true. You don’t know his favorite color. His favorite song. His favorite book. For a long time, you didn’t know what he got up to on his side of the penthouse. You don’t know how he met his friends. What he studied in university. Who he has loved in the past. Who he loves now. You don’t know why he does the things he does, and why he doesn’t do the things he doesn’t do. 

But you do know his Chinese takeout order. 

And you do know his hobbies. Well, one of them, at least. 

Who’s to say you can’t learn more?

“Well,” you start with a smile. “I’m your wife, aren’t I? Shouldn’t I begin to learn?”

Taehyung picks up what you’re putting down instantly, grinning in response. “Only if you’ll tell me things about you, too,” he requisitions. 

“I will,” you promise. It’s the easiest one you’ve ever had to make. 

His face is light, bright, bathed in the rays of the afternoon sun. His eyes shimmer as they meet yours, golden flecks more pronounced like this, in this gorgeous, open space, daylight streaming through the windows. Looking at him makes you feel like you are surrounded by warmth, makes you feel like the sun is opening its arms out to you. He has always been gorgeous. Beautiful. But looking at him like this, standing in the middle of a room filled with all the things he loves, a yellow halo surrounding him—he is ethereal. 

Taehyung smiles. “Then I will, too.”

The hand-holding comes naturally tonight.

The funny thing is, actually, you don’t need to hold hands at this gathering. It’s not an event. Or a public appearance. It’s not even a business dinner. It’s your aunt’s sixtieth birthday party, reserved exclusively for family. Isn’t that strange? That Taehyung is, technically, family now?

For so long you had vowed to stay as far away from him as possible. Vowed to stick it to him whenever and wherever you could, do anything you could to get on his nerves, rile him up. Vowed that when you, one day, took over your family affairs, you would never, ever invite him. Make it known that he wasn’t to be a part of your life. And yet, here you are. Clinging to him despite being well-acquainted with—loved by, even—every other person in the room. Holding his hand like a goddamn lifeline. 

To be fair, Taehyung doesn’t look a hair out of place here. Dressed relatively casually, a smart sweater with a collared shirt underneath it, he smiles warmly at all of your relatives and presents your aunt with a beautiful and very expensive scarf the two of you had commissioned from a designer in Italy, which she absolutely loves. She pinches his cheek and proceeds to wear it for the rest of the night. 

“Damn,” you murmur to yourself as you wander around your aunt’s house, hand wrapped around his arm. “This place hasn’t changed a bit.”

“When was the last time you were here?” Taehyung asks. 

The question actually makes you think for a moment. “I don’t know, maybe five years ago? Last couple of birthdays I was overseas or in school. Had to send her a card.”

“Bet your parents were real pleased with that,” he jokes, making you both laugh. At least you two will always be able to share your experiences of domineering and influential parents with each other. 

“Oh, I’m sure. Just as pleased as they were when they realized how much we hated each other.” You expect that little jest to elicit a laugh out of Taehyung as well, but he just smiles tightly, huffing out a breath of acknowledgement. 

“Eh, it’s not like that now, is it?” He offers up. 

“I suppose not,” you muse, sitting down together on her ancient grandma couch in the living room. No matter how rich your family gets, she’ll never get rid of this thing, that’s for sure. 

One thing you’ve picked up over time is that, for every second Taehyung spends basking in the spotlight, he spends an equal amount of time lingering by the wall, watching the rest of the world turn without him. He’s an observer. He is one by nature, feeling an irresistible pull to understand humans in a way only artists could ever do. He sits down next to you and watches your family in an environment where they can relax, where they can feel comfortable and be casual with one another. 

Very seldom have you ever brought friends to events like these. Small family affairs. But Taehyung isn’t a friend, is he? No, he’s your husband. He belongs here just as much as you do. 

“My family seems to really like you,” you point out. Not that anybody has ever harbored as much disdain for him as you. Your parents called him respectable and polite when they told you you were to be wed. Your grandmother had said he was a dashing young man. He doesn’t exactly have to reach far to be loved around here. 

“That’s my job, isn’t it?” He replies snidely. 

“Oh, just take the compliment,” you say with a roll of your eyes. Taehyung always has to be so difficult. “I’m surprised you aren’t nervous as hell. Last boyfriend I brought to meet my parents was shaking in his Louis Vuitton shoes.”

“Last boyfriend, huh?” Taehyung’s interest has been sufficiently piqued. “And, uh, how many of those have you had?”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, smile twitching on your lips. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Mr. Heartbreaker.” Pretty rich of Taehyung to be asking you such a question when he’s probably had more girlfriends than you can count on both hands. “Not as many as you’ve had girlfriends, that’s for sure.”

“Guess I’m a lot different than all those trashy guys you’ve dated, aren’t I?” He asks, an eyebrow raised as he looks at you. 

“You are?”

Taehyung nods assertively. “Well, yeah. First of all, I’m your husband. Second of all, your parents love me. Third of all, you love me, too.”

You scoff. “Don’t humble yourself. You don’t know me that well.”

“Speaking of which,” Taehyung says, eyes wide as he points to you knowingly, “how about you tell me a little fact about yourself? It’s my job to learn about you, isn’t it?”

“That is my line, watch it,” you sneer, pointing back at him. You wrack your brain for a fact that you can tell him, something more exciting than your favorite color but less weird than one of those terrible icebreaker exercises you had to do in college seminars. Something that has pertinence to who you are. Who you’ve become. “Alright. I used to want to be a fashion designer when I was little.”

Now that catches Taehyung off guard. “Really?” He says, genuinely intrigued. 

You shrug. “Yeah. I learned to sew when I was really little. Been tailoring and hemming clothes all my life. But I always wanted to design my own stuff.”

“Is that what’s in your room?” Taehyung asks. “A sewing machine?”

“Bingo.”

“Wow,” Taehyung says. “I didn’t know that.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of this exercise?” You say, just to be smart. 

Taehyung shakes his head, eyes rolling. 

“What about you?” You ask. You can’t imagine what he’ll say. Astronaut. Veterinarian. Or, if he really wants to surprise you, a business executive. 

“A museum curator.”

It is an answer that simultaneously surprises and doesn’t surprise you at all. 

“Fitting,” you muse. “You could have put your own art on display.”

“Pretty sure that’s, like, super unethical,” Taehyung reminds you. 

“So? You’re rich. Start your own museum. Put your own art on display. Live your dream,” you amend. “It shouldn’t be holed up in that studio of yours forever. It deserves to be seen.”

Taehyung smiles at you. “You think so?”

You nod. “Of course. You create beautiful things, Tae.” It’s the first time you’ve ever called him that. And that is not lost on Taehyung, either.

“Thank you,” he says softly, blinking as he looks at you. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to.

Later that night, when everyone’s gotten a few drinks into their systems and Bruce Springsteen is playing low on the stereo, Taehyung disappears off towards the bathroom, no doubt because of the excellent soup that was served that night. All by your lonesome, you feel a little stranded, surrounded by your old relatives dancing on the hardwood floor of the dining room, your other cousins too young to actually spend time with. 

In the commotion, your mother comes up to you, swirling a rather large glass of red wine in her hand. 

“Where’s Taehyung?” She asks. 

“Bathroom.”

“No wonder you were alone,” she says with a hearty laugh. “The two of you have been glued to each other’s sides all evening.”

“He’s my husband,” you offer as an explanation. 

“I know, I know,” she says, shaking you off with a smile. Your mother is a lot more casual once she’s had her fill of wine, no doubt her favorite, Bordeaux. A lot more loving, too. “You really made your grandmother proud, you know? She loved you so much.”

“I know,” you say, trying not to get choked up at the mere mention of your grandmother. 

“She was so happy to see you with Taehyung. It made her feel safe that you would be taken care of,” she continues on, barely paying you and your swimming eyes any attention. “She would be so happy to see you with him now, too. How much you love her.”

“I miss her,” you hiccup out, trying to compose yourself. Nothing kills a birthday party like some sad sack crying over her deceased grandmother. 

“I know, darling,” your mother says, calling you by a nickname she has hardly used ever since you turned eighteen. She squeezes you tightly, a small hug of comfort. “I miss her, too.”

Someone calls your mother’s name, distracting her as she wanders off to your uncle, who is asking what the best way to cut the three-tiered cake on the dining room table is. She bids you a goodbye before disappearing towards the kitchen, no doubt ready to make the cutting of the cake an affair all on its own. 

Taehyung comes back soon after, spotting you instantly as you stand around in the living room. 

“Hey,” he says, noticing the wet shimmer of your eyes. “You alright?”

You nod, feeling better already now that he has returned. Now that he is by your side. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I hope those tears aren’t because you missed me,” he says, wiping away a stray one that has escaped from your eyes. You close them as his thumb brushes against your upper cheek, your eyelashes, opening them only when you’ve felt his touch vanish from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake. 

“No,” you say. But the night makes you honest, and a couple of drinks, even more so. “But I’m glad you’re here.”

Taehyung smiles. “Me, too.”

For all those days you have spent together, never have you and Taehyung had a night in. Which isn’t necessarily completely surprising, considering how many evening events the two of you have had obligations to attend, considering your differing work schedules and meeting times. Considering that, for a very long time, the two of you had no desire to spend any time with each other at all. 

But tonight, there is nothing on your calendar. No galas, no dinners, no meetings, no schedules. There is only Taehyung, who has spent the entire afternoon up in his studio, inhaling spray paint fumes and doing what he loves. And there is only you, who has spent the entire afternoon wondering what the hell you’re going to do tonight when there is nothing else planned. 

You knock on the door to his studio, catching him right as he’s finishing up another piece. This one is a single flower, painted in broad, confident strokes, bright green and red and sunflower yellow decorating the canvas. 

“Hey, what’s up?” He asks, turning around to face you. 

“Wanna order takeout tonight?” You suggest. 

Taehyung grins. 

Thirty minutes and your favorite Chinese food later, you and Taehyung have settled onto the couch, trays of dumplings and noodles and rice in front of you, an unfunny movie playing in the background. 

You can’t remember the last time the two of you sat on this couch together. Maybe that night you had made the deal? Perhaps not even then. It wouldn’t at all surprise you if you found out that this was the very first time you and Taehyung have sat together on your couch, in your living room, in your house. So often is it occupied by others—Victoria, who sometimes comes over to ooh and ahh at your closet, Jimin, Jungkook, and Hoseok, who sit on this couch and play FIFA like it’s their job, your mother, when she wants to make herself at home in a place that doesn’t belong to her—but never you. Never you and him. 

“This is kinda nice, isn’t it?” You ask, swallowing a bite of dumpling. 

“Chinese food is always nice,” Taehyung responds over a mouthful of cold noodles. 

“Not that,” you say with a sigh, “this. Sitting together. Watching this shitty movie.”

“It’s not that shitty,” Taehyung tries to reason. On screen, the main character is getting pied in the face during some weird college fundraiser. “Okay, it’s a little shitty. But it’s good background noise, right?”

You nod halfheartedly. “I guess.” Silence. You take another bite of your dumpling, not really sure how to continue the conversation. “We don’t really get to do this a lot, you know? Sit and eat dinner and watch a movie together. Like a date.”

“We’re on a date now, are we?” Taehyung muses, eyeing you snarkily. 

“Isn’t that what this is?” You retort. 

He shrugs. “I suppose it is.”

“Tell me another fact about you,” you request, looking over to him where he sits on the opposite side of the couch. 

“About what?”

“Anything.”

Taehyung pauses, ponders for a moment. But he could never say anything wrong. Not when there is still so much you don’t know about him. Still so much you want to learn, so much you want to commit to memory. For so long you have stared at the planes of his face, the curve of his nose, the twinkle in those dark brown eyes. Those you will always remember. But what about who he is? What he loves? Those are things you still don’t know. 

“The very first time I met you,” Taehyung begins, “I asked Jimin what your name was.”

“When was that?” You ask. Despite you being someone who has spent the better part of the last several years vowing never to give Taehyung the time of day, you sure don’t remember when it all started. 

“That debutante ball,” Taehyung remembers fondly, “when we were fifteen. I asked Jimin what your name was because I wanted to ask you to dance.”

“Shut up, no you didn’t,” you say with a scoff. 

“It’s true. You were standing there in that poofy white dress and I wanted to ask you to dance,” Taehyung points out. The fact that he even remembers what you were wearing is shocking. 

Who knew. Who knew, back then, that you would one day grow up to marry him. 

“And what did I say?” You demand more. 

Taehyung laughs at the memory. “I came up to you, and I asked you if you wanted to dance, and you said, and I quote, ‘Who are you?’”

“No,” you say, aghast at your own behavior. Were those really the first words you ever said to KIm Taehyung?

“You did. Don’t you remember?”

You think back. Think back to every year you have ever known Taehyung, every year you have spent scowling at him from across ballroom floors, making some snide remark as you pass by each other in the hallway. Every year you have spent cursing his existence, willing him away from you so he could bother someone else. Every year you have listened to rumor after rumor of girlfriend after girlfriend. You think back and somewhere, somewhere in there, in those dusty corners of your brain and cobwebbed boxes of your heart, is that first memory of Taehyung, too. 

Of him standing there in some generic black suit, black hair swept over his forehead, shoes too big. Of him coming up to you, trying to be as suave as a fifteen year old could be. Of you saying to him, instead of a hello, or even a what’s your name, “who are you?” 

Of him saying—

“And you said, ‘your dream come true’.” Like a dam bursting open, the memories flood back to you all at once. “I remember that.”

Taehyung laughs out loud at the thought of him saying something so cheesy. “Unsurprisingly, you didn’t want to dance with me.”

“You were so—” you begin, but you don’t have the words. Don’t have the words to express how you felt about him that night. Don’t have the words to express how you feel about him now. Thinking about this, talking about it, it is a bridge. A bridge between what was then and what is now. A bridge between who Taehyung was and who you were and who Taehyung is and who you are. “—so unthinkable. I couldn’t believe you had come up to me and said that. I couldn’t believe you had the audacity. But something about that night made me remember you. Made me remember your name.”

“You thought about me after that?” Taehyung asks. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

“There is something about you that is unforgettable,” you say, honest and real and true. What else can you tell him? The truth is that you have always thought about him. Whether you liked him or not. 

You finish your dinner and place your trays on the end tables next to you, stacking your empty bowls and plates on top of one another as the movie rumbles on in the background. 

“It is kind of a shitty movie,” Taehyung admits after a while of being wholly unenthused. 

“Yeah,” you agree. “But it’s good background noise.”

Taehyung laughs at your little mockery, warm and deep and from his belly. You look at him. He feels so far away, on the other side of the couch. Feels like he’s miles apart from you. You have spent countless nights clinging to his harm, hand gripped tight in his. And sitting like this, a full couch cushion of space between the two of you—it isn’t enough anymore. So you inch closer. 

And closer. 

And a little closer. 

Until you’re pressed up against his side, legs touching as they rest neatly in front of you, backs stick straight as you stare at the television. 

Taehyung holds his arm up. An open invitation. 

Without asking, you lean into him, resting your head in the crook of his shoulder, in the space right underneath his jaw. You pull your feet up onto the couch and curl into his frame, pressing yourself against him. He is warm and firm and inescapable. He smells of coffee and paint and Chinese spices. He wraps his arm around you and pulls you in, as if there were any other place you’d rather be. 

You sit like that for a while. Wrapped up in each other. Lazing around on the couch as the stars twinkle above your head. The movie ends and the two of you don’t even bother skipping the credits, letting them and the cheesy 80’s pop song play on, a distant soundtrack. 

“I never thought any of this would happen,” you breathe out. 

Taehyung looks down at you curiously. “What? This?”

“All of it,” you admit. “Us. Getting married. That stupid tabloid picture. My grandmother. This. It’s all so new.”

“New things will happen all the time,” Taehyung muses aloud. “We can’t help when things change.”

“You don’t have any regrets?” You have plenty. Regrets that you’ll never become the CEO you wanted to be in college. Regrets that you’ll never become the fashion designer you wanted to be as a little girl. Regrets that you will come to resent this marriage, resent Taehyung more than you have in years past, all because you had no choice. Regrets that your grandmother couldn’t see you now. Regrets that there were so many things in your life you could have changed, but didn’t.

“I thought I did,” Taehyung tells you. “I wanted to spend more time with my friends. I wanted to major in art in college. I didn’t want to marry you. I know you didn’t want to marry me.” He looks down and you look up at the same time, eyes locking, inches apart. “But looking back on it, I’m happy where I am. With what I have.”

“I never thought it could ever be like this,” you say, words falling off your tongue before you even ask them to.

“What?”

“Us.”

There’s no need to elaborate. Taehyung understands. He understands that, half a year ago, you both would have thrown yourselves into a volcano before holding hands with each other. He understands that getting over your hatred for each other seemed like an absolutely insurmountable task. He understands that you had never wanted to marry each other, that you couldn’t believe you would have to spend the rest of your lives with each other. 

And he understands that now, things are different. 

“I’m glad things happened the way they did,” Taehyung begins. “I’m grateful for us.”

You press yourself impossibly closer to him, feel his grip tighten around you. Like this, you can hear his heartbeat. Hear it thump like a drum, steady and firm and unwavering. His heart beats against his chest and you wonder. 

You wonder if he can hear the way yours beats for him, too.

There were lots of things that made your night in together special. But one of them is the glaring fact that you don’t get them very often. That their infrequency makes them all the more valuable. 

This has become blatantly obvious to you, because right now you are not spending a night in together. Right now you are stuck at a gala that you have to attend for the sake of business, drinking thin flutes of champagne and mingling with people you barely speak to. 

The one good thing about nights like these is that Taehyung looks positively gorgeous in suits. He sort of always has, but you’d never admit that to his face. At least not until now. And as his wife, you are lucky enough to have a front-row seat. 

“I can feel you staring at me all the way from over here,” Taehyung deadpans as he helps himself to a chocolate-covered strawberry from the buffet table. 

You’re too obvious to have any shame about it. “What can I say, I like the view.”

“Hard to believe I was the once the one being shouted at for being inappropriate in public,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. He bites into the strawberry and eats it all in a single go, tossing the stems into a bin nearby as you join back up in the heart of the crowd. 

“It’s only inappropriate if other people hear,” you tease, letting him guide you, hand intertwined with yours, towards an empty corner where the two of you can snuggle up to one another in (relative) peace. 

“I don’t think the champagne was very good for your filter, Miss Y/N,” Taehyung hisses into your ear, warm breath tickling your skin. 

“Don’t you mean Mrs. Kim?” You pose, an eyebrow raised. 

That seems to do something to Taehyung. It’s not very bright in here, with it being nighttime and all, but even still you can see the way his eyes darken. See the way his lips curl upwards, feel the way his grip on you tightens. It sparks something within you. Something deep in the pit of your belly. 

Something that makes you want more. 

You test the waters. “Mrs. Kim has a nice ring to it, don’t you think, Tae?”

Taehyung looks about a moment away from losing control. But instead of slamming you against the wall in front of all of these people and giving you what you really want, he growls out, low and powerful, “Home. Now.”

He doesn’t need to tell you twice. 

You hail your car outside of the venue and it’s all the both of you can do to not jump on each other right then and there, in the backseat of this giant black van, overcome with want, with need, with everything in between. Taehyung’s leg bounces impatiently the entire ride back, and the feeling of your hand pressed against his doesn’t seem to be calming him down. He pulls you close to him in the backseat of the car, a hand resting on your thigh. You eye him carefully, as if challenging him to be any more daring. He grins. 

Home cannot come soon enough. The two of you tumble out of the backseat and into the elevators, where you mash the top floor button after entering in the security access code, desperate and shameless. The ride seems to take hours, and the heat that surrounds you practically smothers you, covers you, fills up your lungs and chokes you. 

There is nothing left by the time you reach your door. The moment it slams shut behind you Taehyung presses you up against the back of it, pins you against the wood as he hovers over you, eyes tracing your lips. 

“Tell me something,” he demands. 

“What?” 

“A fact. Something I don’t know.”

It doesn’t take much thinking. “I want you,” you breathe out, watch it hit his skin, watch the way his eyes glint in the light of the entranceway. “Please, Tae. I want you.”

It’s enough for him. 

This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed. The first time was nearly five months ago, in a chapel, at an altar, surrounded by hundreds of people. It was so unfun that you seem to have eradicated the mere thought from your memory. But you remember that feeling from that day. That feeling you got when you pressed your lips against his, cemented your marriage with a kiss. That heat. That sting. 

Kissing him now—that feeling has returned tenfold. When his lips meet yours, it feels like fire is rushing through your veins, setting alight every nerve it passes, unforgiving and relentless. His enormous hands come up to cup your jaw, fingers pressing against the skin of your cheeks as they pull you close to him, keep you trapped in his hold. This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed but it feels like it is—it feels like there is a lotus blooming on a lilypad in your heart, it feels like you have been struck by lightning, it feels like nothing else you have ever felt before. It feels brand new. 

Pressing back against him, he slowly releases you from the cage he has created against the door, spinning around so the two of you can tumble up the stairs and into your bedroom, unable to resist sneaking in pecks here and there as you make your way upstairs. Every step you take you stop, giggle as he presses you against the railing just so he can steal another kiss from you, put his hands all over your body. It’s a wonder the two of you even make it into your bedroom at all. 

When you do, however, all bets are off. Taehyung presses you against the still-made bedsheets with a glint in his eye and a growl on his lips, pupils blown wide as he stares down at you, at your body.

"Aren't you a sight? Laid out so pretty for me," he purrs, robbing a breath from you.

It's a tone you have yet to hear from him. You find yourself growing impossibly hot under his stare, burning with an uncharted desire.

You can hardly wrap your brain around it. Here you are, craving the man you had spent the better half of your young adult life loathing. Maybe it’s the champagne; maybe it’s the way his fingers are running slowly up the length of your clothed torso. Whatever it is, your stomach does flips, unfamiliar to the way your body preens under his touch.

"Don't let it go to your head," you tease, simply because you could.

Taehyung hums disapprovingly, pressing kisses into your neck as he grabs one of your thighs and wraps it around his waist, riding your dress up in the process.

You sigh, exposing your neck further for him as he paints bruises into your neck. It feels like just yesterday you had called him out at the altar for his habit of sporting the very same marks you were soon to wear.

Perhaps you should have thought twice about letting the man you had married purely under business pretenses press his hips against your clothed center, but as he rolls his into yours, your mind falls blank, silencing any and all reservations you should have.

Whimpering, you beckon his mouth back onto yours, tongue meeting his wantonly. 

You feel his fingers creep up the outside of your bare thigh, thrilling you in the most primal way. Reaching the band of your underwear after what felt like entirely too long, he runs the pad of his thumb against the lacy fabric.

 You could scream. He is doing this on purpose. He must be. Surely he knows how badly you were aching for him? For him to fill you– whatever the manner may be.

You let out a whine before you can help yourself, frowning as Taehyung looks pleased with himself, confirming his knowledge of your prolonged pleasure.

"What's that? Did you say something?" he mocks, looking cruel and yet strikingly gorgeous as he smirks above you.

"God, you're irritating,” you huff, hips jerking up against his as he pulls at the band of your underwear, the elastic snapping back into the flesh of your hip. "Just fuck me already."

He tuts, clearly unimpressed by your impatience, "Now, where is the fun in that?"

Your eyes flutter shut as his fingers suddenly snake their way between your thighs. Mouth falling ajar, you grip his shoulders as he runs his middle finger against your clothed slit, trailing up and down your warmth. To think he was still dressed while he was touching you like this...

"No... I think I'll take my time with you," he says.

You mew against his hand, arousal forming against his long digits' ministrations. You have to hand it to him. Taehyung knows what he’s doing. The life of a bachelor has seemingly served him well.

You aren’t usually vocal in bed, but the way he’s purring words of filth to you, breath hot against the shell of your ear as he tells you how hot and slick your pretty pussy felt against his hand, has you gasping and sputtering, your own fingers wrapping around his wrist.

The fabric of your panties provides a friction that toys the line of pleasure and pain, making you thrust up to meet his motions, your humility slipping from you.

Taehyung watches you intently, cock growing hard under the constraints of his dress pants. You look better than he could've imagined, eyes watering and body shivering under his touch, his fingers soaking with your arousal. He can only imagine what you'd feel like with his fingers fully buried into you, rocking them against your velvety walls.

He lets out a groan of his own, turned on by the idea of you fucking yourself onto his fingers, whimpering out his name in ecstasy.

There’s this part of you that faintly recognizes that Taehyung has done this plenty of times before. Plenty of times with plenty of other lovers. But there is a different part of you, that part that bursts with light and hope, that reminds you that he was never married to those other ones. That his allegiance lies with you. And that thought, knowing that deep within you, he is yours, makes your jaw fall slack, pretty noises tumbling from your lips and your thighs clamping around him.

You were close, closer than you care to admit. Every touch against you is careful yet deliberate as he reads the signs of your body, the way it keens and arches into him, offering you words of encouragement as your climax finally hits.

"That's right. Good girl. Let go for me," Taehyung coos, eyes dark and focused on your writhing form.

You cry out into the familiar space of your shared room, head thrown back as you ride out the high, letting it wrack your body, send jolts throughout your veins.

You barely have time to catch your breath when he presses his mouth back onto yours, kiss still as eager as it was when you both first entered your home. You are alight with satisfaction as he pulls away to press a trail of kisses against your jaw.

"I want—f-fuck," you stutter as he finds your already hypersensitive clit once more, rolling his thumb over your now soaked panties in tantalizing circles, "want to make you feel good, too."

Admittedly, this fantasy had crossed your mind once or twice, brought on by the way he carried himself in a suit and the way his large fingers wrapped around the champagne glass; confident, collected, and entirely charming. Who are you to shy away from a man like him? He certainly has always been rather good-looking. 

He pauses his motions, pulling his hand back to sit on your waist. Your dress is of the finest, most delicate satin, and after tonight's activities, completely wrinkled. You can almost hear your stylist's cries of dismay. Whatever. You have a steamer. And why focus on the dress when it’s obvious the two of you are focused on what lies underneath it?

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." You nod, skin still burning from your past climax.

Helping you back up, Taehyung stands. You lick your lips as you sit back up on the edge of the bed, watching intently as he unbuckles his belt, audibly hissing as his pants fall to his ankles, cock visibly straining against the fabric of his underwear. Thank God you don’t have to stand. With the way your thighs still felt weak and how your husband looks like a goddamn Adonis towering above you? Your legs surely would give out underneath you if you rose.

Brows furrowed, Taehyung palms over himself briefly before pulling down the waistband of his underwear, his painfully hard member slapping against his torso.

Your eyes widened on instinct. While the last thing you wanted to do was help inflate Taehyung's already large ego, you were certainly impressed at his size; thick and girthy, his tip red and shining with precum.

He couldn't help but smirk, thoroughly pleased by the way you stared at him unabashedly, chest rising and falling heavily.

"Open up for me," he orders.

And who are you to deny a request from your dear husband?

Your pretty lips wrap themselves around his engorged tip, all remnants of lipstick long gone by now. Taehyung hisses, a hand finding the side of your jaw as you run your tongue against the underside of his cock.

"Fuck, you're so pretty," he grunts, fighting off the urge to grip the back of your head and fuck your throat. As much as he'd love your have you choking and drooling all over his cock – and boy would he – he lets you set your own pace, not wanting to overwhelm you.

It doesn't take long for you to sink your mouth further down, however, clearly set on making Taehyung feel as good as you could.

A low moan erupts from his throat, digits pressing into your jaw in request to take more of him in, which you happily oblige.

You had your eyes trained on him, completely obsessed with the way he panted through pink lips, hissing slightly every time your tongue rolled over his sensitive tip.

Lolling his head to a side, his eyes meet yours, gaze primal and wolfish as he watches the way you worked his cock.

"Doing so good, love. Doing so fucking good for me,” he murmurs.

You hum against his skin at the sound of the sudden pet name, an unfamiliar feeling fluttering in your belly. You push aside the feeling, focusing instead on the way he grunts at the new sensation you had just given him.

Giggling, you pull off his cock, opting instead to press a kiss against his leaking tip, making sure to hold his eyes as you run kitten licks against it.

"God, you're such a tease." He shakes his head in disbelief. 

He looks so good above you, shivering and cursing out praises on how good your mouth feels, how well you take his cock. Running your tongue along the length of his shaft, you become certain that this is a display you can’t imagine yourself ever getting tired of. But you have all the time in the world, right?

"Y/N,” he gasps suddenly, hips jerking towards your face. "Love, I'm gonna-- gonna cum."

"Cum in my mouth, please." Your voice was pleading and desperate. Taehyung had never heard such words spoken more sweetly. 

"Fuck's sake."

You let out a yelp in surprise as his fingers work their way through your hair, bringing your head back down onto his cock. You relax, though, when you feel the hot ropes of his cum hit the back of your throat, your hands finding purchase on his thighs as you do your best to swallow it all down.

Pulling yourself off him, you let out a small cough, eyes watering slightly as you hadn’t managed to prepare yourself with a breath before his release. His large palm runs across the top of your head as you caught your breath, expression flickering with something unfamiliar. Could it be... fondness? 

Your heart stammers at the thought as you stand, slowly stepping out of your dress, letting it drape off of your figure. Taehyung looks absolutely gobsmacked, pupils dark as he gazes at you, eyes unabashedly raking your body. He’s shameless. 

You both are. 

Slowly, you step towards him, fingers reaching out towards his shirt, carefully undoing the buttons as you gaze at each other, expressions unreadable. 

"Tae?” You ask innocently, blinking up at him. “Fuck me?" 

Your polite request makes Taehyung chuckle. 

"Please?" You bring your bottom lip between your teeth, eyes blinking up at him adoringly for good measure. You reach the last button, let his dress shirt drape open. He brushes it off himself, stands there for a few seconds just to let the way you’re ogling his toned chest go to his head. At least he’s good-looking. 

He sighs, probably contemplating some clever rebuttal, but eventually decides against it as his cock is already twitching back to life.

"Alright, love. Turn around. On your knees for me," He orders, making your stomach flip.

To your surprise, you are hardly in place when the warmth of his large hands finds the soft of your tummy, pressing you back into his chest as he pressed a peck to the back of your neck.

You squirm in his hold, whining as that same hand of his grabs hold of your breast, long digit rolling your nipple between their tips. You can’t help but press your ass back into him. His cock feels hot and heavy, pressing against the back of your thigh, making your pussy clench in anticipation. 

You want him.

You want him so bad that you don't know what to do with yourself, shuddering as his free hand runs along the side of your ass, leaving scorching hot trails on your skin wherever he kneads into your flesh. He's touching you everywhere – everywhere but where you need him the most, and the arousal that drips down your thigh mocks you.

"Dammit, please!" You exclaim, running out of patience.

"Please what?" He says, an eyebrow arched.

You shiver, committing the way his middle finger traced your pelvic bone to memory forever.

You puff out a frustrated breath, nearly at your wit's end. "Please fuck me, Tae."

Taehyung pauses, grip on your breast and hip tightening as he lets out a moan. You let one out yourself as you feel him readjust, cock pressing against your slick entrance.

"Fuck, you sound so pretty when you say my name," He grunts. "Okay, baby. I'll fuck you. Begging so nicely for my cock."

You let out a squeak as you're suddenly pushed down onto your hands, back arching as he pushes his fat cock inside your heavenly cunt. He's thick, so thick, that you instinctively grip the sheet underneath you, fingers curled around them tightly as if it means to hold onto your sanity.

Taehyung lets out a shaky breath, angling your hips up so that you could take more of him.

"You feel—feel so good," he admits above you, and suddenly you wish you could see him. See the way his bangs stick to his damp forehead—see the way his tongue swipes over his bottom lip wickedly.

You let that thought go, however, as he thrust into you, making your jaw fall slack and eyes flutter shut. Profanities roll off your tongue unabashedly, helpless under the way his thick member pulls out of you, only to slam back into you.

You weren't expecting this. The way he stretches you out further than anyone had before. Your pussy clenches around him, reveling in the sweet, sweet burn.

He digs into the flesh of your hips, holding you steady as you mew and cry out, pushing your hips back in time to his, trying your best to meet his movements.

"Tae... fuck, fuck, fuck—"

He was filling you to the brim. Filling you tight and deep.

God, the way he was panting behind you was music to your ears. His cock pulses every time you call out his name, voice muffled and buried as you had your head pressed into the mattress, hair messy and bouncing with every hard thrust.

"S'good! Fuck... so, ah, big..." you cry out.

You feel drunk. Intoxicated off this beautiful man and the way he makes you feel a way only he can.

You nearly let out a sob as the rough pads of Taehyung's fingertips suddenly reach around you and find your neglected clit, rolling light circles on the soft and swollen bundle of nerves skillfully.

You are a mess, whimpering and drooling into your expensive sheets, and he filled every inch of you, leaving no place undiscovered. Your high nears, stewing on low heat somewhere near the pit of your belly, waiting for a chance to erupt and wash all over you. Taehyung must be close to, you realize, as his thrusts began to slow down, slamming into you roughly as if chasing after his high.

"Gonna take this load? Huh? Gonna let me cum inside your pretty little pussy?" His voice is straining, as if trying to breathe evenly but merely moments from falling apart.

If only you could formulate an intelligent response, but instead, you are a blubbering wreck, thighs shaking as they threatened to give out underneath you. But somehow, Taehyung knew. He had you. Quicking his motions against your delicate pearl, he could tell you were close too, and he was going to make sure you got there.

Suddenly, you're crying out and convulsing, tears brimming at the ends of your eyes as you feel Taehyung empty into you, collapsing onto his hands as well.

You feel his hot breath against the back of your neck as he pants, breath growing more and more even as the two of you regain control of your bodies and minds.

Pulling out of you, he plops down beside you, and for a moment, the two of you hold each other's gazes, eyes speaking in ways words never could.

Finally, after what feels both like an eternity and just a moment, you work up the courage to say something, moving closer to him as you place a hand on his chest, cushioning your chin as you rested on top of it.  

"Psst," you beckon, voice hushed.

"Yeah?" His voice is husky and tired.

"I’m grateful, too."

"Huh?"

"I’m grateful for us, too."

Taehyung's gaze is soft, and it lingers on you for a second before the sides of his mouth curl up tenderly. He grins down at you, eyes drifting shut. You feel him squeeze you closer, pressing you against his skin. And then, you hear his breathing steady, see his lips part slightly. 

You lean into his chest, eyelids fluttering. “Thank you, Tae.”

Not unlike the many other mornings you have awoken in this bed, when you open your eyes as the morning sunlight streams through the windows, Taehyung is nowhere to be found. The sheets on his side of the bed are flipped aside, revealing that soft outline of his body from the night before left imprinted into the sheets, a dip in the mattress where he slept. You had fallen asleep all wrapped up in each other, tangled up like vines, but must have separated sometime during the night. Distantly, you register Taehyung’s voice outside, notice his phone missing from his bedside table. He must be on an early morning call. 

You check your phone for the time. Ten o’clock. 

A late morning call, then. 

Still basking in the afterglow of the night prior, you slowly inch your way out of bed, shivering as you pull the covers off you and scoot your legs around so they hang over the edge of the bed. You rub at your eyes until you faintly remember you did not take your makeup off last night, and when your hand comes away covered with black streaks and flecks of mascara, you wince to yourself. There goes five hundred dollars worth of a skincare routine. 

After washing yourself up and applying as many serums as you can to your skin, you wrap yourself up in one of his button-up shirts, the torso so wide that it drapes over you. The tips of your fingers peek out from the ends of the sleeves, and you cross your arms lightly over your chest as you make your way to the door, ready to entice your husband back to bed for round two. What? It’s Saturday. 

You peer around the door to find Taehyung standing a few feet away, facing away from you. He’s shirtless, and as his wife you have absolutely no problems ogling him, the toned curves of his back, the muscles in his arms. He’s always been a looker. You just finally have an excuse to look for yourself. 

You approach him quietly, not wanting to interrupt nor broadcast your sex life to anybody on the other side who may be listening. Already, the idea of crawling back in bed together sends goosebumps along your skin, makes you giddy with anticipation. You’re just about to tap him on the shoulder, lips curled upwards in suggestion, when he says—

“And my inheritance? That’s secured now, right? Because I said I would pretend to be in love with her in public—?”

And it is as if Medusa herself appeared in this room, turning you to stone as your heart thuds to the floor, a hollow, empty noise. 

You don’t hear the rest of Taehyung’s conversation. You don’t even hear the sound of your own heartbeat. This terrible, aching sound rings in your ears, silencing everything in its wake, drowning out even the sighs of your own breath. It is as if you have been frozen solid. As if you have been shot in the stomach. You stand there, feeling absolutely nothing, and all you can do is brace yourself for what is to come. Taehyung’s words were the knife but his next actions will be its removal, leaving in its wake an irreparable wound. 

He turns around, casual and cool, voice still hushed. As if you were still asleep. As if you hadn’t heard anything at all. But when he twists his body and sees you standing there, staring back up at him, lips parted in shock. 

“I’ll call you back,” he tells whoever was on the other side of the line, looking more panicked by the second. He opens his mouth so he can explain himself, but you don’t need him to. You’ve heard everything already. 

“I should have known,” you say, feeling angry and betrayed and sad all at once. “I should have known it was all an act.”

“Y/N, wait, let me explain—”

“What is there to tell me, Taehyung? What are you going to say? That you didn’t mean it? That you thought I wouldn’t find out? That last night was just a one-off?” You demand. The heat from your veins hasn’t left. Still, it simmers through your blood, burning you up from the inside out. “That you didn’t want to lie to me?”

“It’s not like that and you know it,” Taehyung says defensively, brows furrowed. “Just give me a chance to explain myself.”

“Explain yourself? How you pretended, every day and every night, just so you could get some more money in your bank account? So you could make sure you would get your father’s business when he died?”

Taehyung bites back easily. “Don’t act like you weren’t also faking it at some point. I know you were almost removed from your grandmother’s will.”

Your tongue is bitter at the mention of your grandmother. As if Taehyung ever even knew her. “My grandmother has nothing to do with this.”

“Really?” Taehyung challenges. “So you wanting to stay in her will was just a little bonus, right?”

“Don’t,” you say sharply. “It’s different.”

“Different how?” Taehyung spits. “Because right now, to me, it looks pretty similar to what I’ve done.”

“My grandmother died months ago,” you remind him. Her will is no longer the question. It has been written, settled, and executed. There was no reason for you to continue playing along once she took her last breath. No reason—unless you wanted to. “Meanwhile you’ve been keeping your inheritance a secret from me this entire time.”

“We made a deal,” Taehyung says. “A deal that said we would both act happy and pretend to be in love because we both had things we needed to worry about. Family things. Money things. You were a part of this, just like I was. You pretended, too.”

“Well, maybe I stopped pretending!” 

You can’t take it anymore. All this anger, all this emptiness, it’s been bubbling up inside you ever since you heard those first words come out of his mouth. It spills out of you all at once, an eruption from your lips, your heart’s doors bursting open. You have held his hand tightly in your own. You have pressed your lips to his. You have laid yourself bare in front of him. What is there left to protect? What part of you has not already been stained by him, by his touch, by the feeling of his fingers against your skin?

The hallway is silent, but you can hear your cry echo down the corridor. Hear the way it bounces along the walls before fading away. 

“Maybe I stopped pretending,” you repeat, softer this time. You blink and already can feel the streaks along your skin, the tears falling from your eyes. “Did you ever think about that?”

“Y/N, what are you talking about?” Taehyung looks like he’s in disbelief. Like he cannot believe the words you are saying to him. 

Well, that makes two of you. 

“Can’t you see, Tae? Can’t you tell?” You ask, the nickname falling from your lips before you can even help it. You must remind yourself to change that, later. “I’m in love with you.”

They are words you have never said to someone before. Not even your old boyfriends. Words that you always knew you would reserve for someone special. Someone who would touch your heart and make it their own, someone who would leave imprints of their fingers against your chest. Someone who would brighten you up from the inside out, leave you bursting with light. 

Ironic, that Taehyung has become that someone. When he is the one person you never thought could. 

When he has proven, time and time again, that you two just cannot mix. Oil and water. Pastel and acrylic. Satin and silk. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” you spit out quickly, before Taehyung has a chance to respond. “I know it doesn’t matter to you.”

“Y/N, yes it does,” Taehyung begins, desperate and pleading. “I know you heard what I said, but I swear, it stopped being an act for me, too. Things are different now, just like you said.”

“Don’t. Please.” You pull away as he reaches out towards you. Faintly, you remember that it is his shirt you are wearing. Remember that no matter what you do, he will always surround you. “Please, Tae.” You have nothing left. You can’t bear to look at him, but where else will you go? You cannot believe the things he’s said, the things he’s done, but where else would you go?

“I love you, too,” Taehyung says, and a part of you wants so badly to believe him. 

A part of you wants so badly to ingrain those words into your head, carve them into your heart, let him wrap his arms around you and promise that everything will be alright. But things are different now. Just like you said. You and Taehyung are not the same people you were six months ago. Or six weeks ago. Or even six minutes ago. You are helpless and he has proven that he does not care. 

“I have to go,” you say, looking away. You don’t think you could handle turning back to him again. “Please, Tae.”

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says, and he reaches out once more but you are not there to meet him halfway. Were you ever?

“I know,” you whisper back.

You duck into your bedroom and pack a suitcase of everything you need. Being here is suffocating. Being with him is like setting yourself alight. 

Victoria has no questions when you show up at her door later that day, suitcase by your side and this ridiculous bottle of Merlot in your hands. You had picked it up on the way over. You sort of figured you might need it. 

“You don’t wanna talk about it, do you?” Victoria asks. 

“Tell me about your streaming service,” you hiccup in response.

Victoria is happy to oblige. She even tells you that she still hasn’t picked a CFO, and that the position would be open for you if you ever wished to take it. 

Funnily enough, what will become of you once your father retires and passes along the company is the furthest away from your thoughts. 

You remember being so worried about that. Being so worried that, once they married you off like every good daughter should be, you would be absorbed into your husband’s life, cut out of your family’s. Your father would choose a cousin, an uncle, or even a friend to take after the business, bestowing upon you a thoughtful inheritance but nothing more than that. All of those years of schooling, finance in college, your MBA soon after, would be wasted, just so you could hang on the arm of your husband for the rest of your life. 

It’s thoughtful of Victoria to think of you for the position. She knows just as well as anyone else that you would be an excellent fit. And if things were just a little bit different, you would be jumping at the offer. 

But your future career plans are on the backburner, along with the rest of your life. 

All you can really do, right now, at this very moment, is wait for things to change. As they always do. 

“Don’t you have an event tonight?” Victoria asks about three days into your stay. She’s given you her favorite (her words, not yours) guest bedroom and an enormous closet to match, despite you only coming over with a carry-on’s worth of clothes. 

You scoff to yourself. “Like I’d want to go to anything with him.”

“Have you even called your parents?” 

“No,” you say, not even caring about the repercussions. There’s no doubt in your mind that they’ll be ringing you soon. And when they do, maybe then you’ll finally work up the courage to tell them what really happened. Tell them that you can’t go back there. Not yet, at least. 

“I’m sorry that this happened to you,” Victoria says as she hands you a bowl of vegetable soup, homemade from a couple of days ago. You nod to yourself, sniffling as you curl into the couch cushions and wish they would absorb you whole. 

There’s no need to ask her what she means by ‘this’. Everything. From your engagement to the marriage, from those tabloids to the deal, from your grandmother’s death to now. It has all been unfair. Life is unfair. And while you’ve always known that, it has been particularly cruel to you as of late. 

Still, when you wake up sometimes, you can still feel him tracing over your skin. Feel his lips hovering over yours, breath fanning out over your cheeks. You turn over and expect to see him lying there, on the right side of the bed, sheets mussed as they cover his figure. You wake up and for a brief moment, for that split, split second, there is peace. And happiness. And love. 

And then there is nothing. 

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Me, too.”

Maybe he really does love you. Maybe things really did change. But you have always been a pragmatic person, always let your head guide you rather than your heart. The secret’s out. Taehyung had an inheritance he needed to secure. You were his path to doing so. Those things haven’t changed. No matter if his feelings did. 

“Hey, look at this,” Victoria says, brows furrowed as she holds out her phone in front of you, revealing a livestreamed interview from the event tonight. 

You peer over. 

It’s Taehyung. 

Of course it’s Taehyung. Who else would she be showing you?

He stands in a clean-cut gray coat, draping over his figure, black dress shirt and slacks underneath, belt wrapped neatly around his hips. He holds his hand up in a wave and smiles politely to the cameras, to the reporters, letting the flashes wash over him like waves in the ocean. 

“Mr. Kim! Mr. Kim!” Someone calls. “Where’s your wife?”

Oh, God.

Taehyung grimaces a little, pursing his lips. “My wife won’t be joining me tonight.”

“Can you tell us why?” They shout. 

“Sorry, no more questions. Thank you for asking though. She’s well,” he says, quickly ushering himself along, entering the venue so no more reporters can bombard him. When he disappears, the livestream immediately moves on to the next guest, but you hardly pay them any attention. 

“Huh,” Victoria says aloud. 

Indeed. Taehyung’s response strikes you as rather odd. Why would he tell the public that? Why not make up a lie, say you’re sick, or you’re overseas, or you’re just late? Why simply tell them that you won’t be there? Surely, Taehyung is just as aware of the consequences of arriving at an event without you as you are. There’s no doubt that his parents will be in contact with him soon, too. No doubt that this will leave a stain on his family. His image. It might even threaten his inheritance after all.

So why not lie?

You frown to yourself, nose scrunching up in confusion. You don’t like where this train of thought leads.

“You okay?” Victoria asks when she sees the bewildered expression on your face.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” you say. Just completely befuddled. It escapes you, why Taehyung wouldn’t just make up some sort of excuse as to reasoning behind your absence. Why he would even show up at the event at all. Certainly, going to the event without you is worse than not going at all. It prompts questions. It spreads rumors. 

Later that night, you get a call from your parents, demanding to know why you weren’t there with him. You say you got sick. You plead with them not to question anything. 

You wonder what happens next. You and Taehyung still have two more events this week. A dinner and a ball. What will you do then?

Taehyung goes solo for the dinner. You suppose you could have predicted that, considering his apparent willingness to arrive alone for the first event, too. He hasn’t made any efforts to contact you and for once, you’re glad for his silence. Not that you even know what he would say to you, anyway, but at least he isn’t begging you to come back to him. 

The sad truth is that if he did, if he got down on his knees right in front of you and willed you to come back home, you probably would. He has always been impossible to resist. Even when you first met him, when he sauntered up towards you and told you he was your dream come true. You didn’t know it then. But he was. He was everything you would ever want. 

Why would he lie? 

Why would he do that?

You can’t wrap your head around it. What is he getting out of it by telling the truth? By admitting to the paparazzi, to the reporters and the cameramen, that you won’t be there with him. That you will not be joining him. Nothing, certainly. His parents must be furious. His inheritance may be on the rocks. His image might tank. 

So then, why do it at all?

Could it… could it be?

Is it true?

You have loved Taehyung for a long time. Longer than you probably even care to admit. You have always held your head high at events, spoken loudly and without fear, but being with him made you feel safe. Secure. You would hold his hand and know, know that he was holding yours, too. It grounded you. It soothed your worries. 

Does he really love you back?

Taehyung smiles politely and laughs when he needs to at these events, but he doesn’t look the same. Even through the screen you can see those bags under his eyes, that spark that has faded. You hardly recognize him. He looks so lonely, without someone by his side. So distant. 

When you know the dinner has ended, you almost pick up the phone and call him. 

Almost. 

Instead, when the ball rolls around, you ask Victoria if she’s got a spare dress she can lend you.

 Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen covered in paint splotches, wearing old college hoodies, and fresh out of a restless night’s sleep, cleans up pretty well. For a married man, at least. 

You wonder what the past few days must have been like for him. If they have been as empty as your own. Wonder what it was like, riding alone in a big black van to this hotel ballroom, no one to tease, no one to laugh with, no one to hold. No one to poke him awake if he accidentally fell asleep. No one to make sure he’s okay. 

Taehyung stands right outside of the entrance, waving politely to all of the paparazzi, smiling as the cameras flash, giving them the time of day for a moment before he heads inside and muscles his way through another event without you. 

Or so he thinks. 

You spot him just as he opens his mouth, ready to repeat those same lines all over again.

My wife won’t be joining me tonight. She’s well, though.

And maybe it’s just because you haven’t seen him in nearly a week. Maybe it’s just because he is about to lie to those reporters once more, ready to face whatever consequences come his way. 

Or maybe it’s just because you miss him. Miss him terribly, have been missing him terribly. Being away from him was necessary, but that didn’t make it any less unbearable. Not getting to hold his hand, see his smile, meet his eyes. You and Taehyung may not have always liked each other, but you saw him every day regardless. He became a constant in your life. Not an if, but a when. If everything went to shit, you always knew he would still be there. 

And there he is. 

“Wait! Taehyung!”

Taehyung’s eyes widen as he hears your voice, gaze darting around wildly, mouth parted in surprise. He looks around desperately, scanning the crowd, meeting the eyes of every single person in front of him until he finally looks to the left, sees you rushing up towards him, hiking up the skirt of your dress as your heels tap against the sidewalk. 

And when he spots you, sees you running up to him, his body relaxes, a weight lifted from his shoulders as he beams back at you, relieved and thankful and filled with joy, all at once. And you know, then. 

You know that everything will be okay. 

“Sorry I’m late,” you say sheepishly, cheeks burning as he looks at you, takes in every inch of you, breathes you in and lets you fill him up. 

Taehyung doesn’t respond. You reach out to hold his hand but he grabs your wrist and pulls you in, presses you against his body as he presses his hands against your cheeks, palms burning as they meet your skin, and he kisses you. In front of all these people, he kisses you. 

And goddamnit, you will kiss him back. 

It feels like lightning, like a thunderstorm, like the waves of the ocean are crashing against your heart. It feels like fire, like flames are licking at your veins, sending sparks through your blood. It feels like home. 

You and Taehyung ignore the shouts of reporters, the flashes of cameras, the honks of the cars on the other side of the road. When you part, he presses his forehead against yours and lets the tip of your nose meet his. And you smile. 

“Don’t be alone any longer, Mr. Kim,” you whisper, loud enough so only he can hear. 

“When I’m with you, I never am, Mrs. Kim,” he murmurs back. 

You wonder what those tabloids will be saying about you tomorrow. 

The rest of the night finds the two of you pretty much inseparable. You wrap yourself around his arm and for the first time in a long time, he presses his hand against the small of your back, keeping you close. Like he’d ever lose you again. 

One of your least favorite parts about attending balls used to be the dancing. As a young and eligible bachelorette, you would always have to lock hands with another, let him awkwardly guide you along to the music as you made the worst small talk imaginable, forcing laughter and smiles whenever he said something he thought was particularly funny. 

But, like so many others, things have changed. Things are different now. 

The waltz comes on and you and Taehyung are the first to reach the center of the ballroom floor, letting him rest his hand on your waist as you press yours on top of his shoulder. Let him twirl you around the room as the orchestra plays in the background, a soft, sweet, light little melody that carries you along. 

“I missed this,” you say softly. 

“I missed us,” Taehyung corrects. He pauses for a moment, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry for not telling you about my inheritance.”

“I’m sorry for storming out. I should have listened to you.” you respond easily. You both have plenty to apologize for. But night is darkest right before dawn. 

“I should have said something,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. “But I was just so—so worried that something would go wrong. And I didn’t know how to explain how I felt about you. I acted in the beginning, too, but then things changed.”

“They always do,” you muse with a grin. 

“I couldn’t believe I had you,” Taehyung admits. “I mean, look at you. You’re gorgeous. And funny. And true.”

“Go on,” you tease, even though you do nothing to hide the smile inching its way across your face, the heating of your cheeks, the simmering of your skin. 

“Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.” Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I just—I felt something for you I couldn’t explain. I still can’t.”

You don’t have to prod any further. You know. Deep within your heart, you know. There is love blossoming in his to match the garden that has bloomed in your own. The flowers that have sprouted in the ashes. He has them, too. And when those petals open and the light streams in, he will know. He will know, too. 

“You make me crazy,” you tell him, whispering gently into his skin. “But I’m a better person when I’m with you. I know I am.”

“I meant what I said, that night,” Taehyung says. Makes you wonder which night he’s actually talking about. “That I’m happy that things have changed. That things happened the way they did. I’m grateful for us.”

“I am, too,” you say. And you are. 

You rest your head against his chest as you dance together, swaying back and forth to the beat of the drums, to the strums of the violins, all wrapped up together like ivy, like vines. Those, too, sit in that garden of yours. Keep you tethered to his side, keep him close to yours. He holds you in his arms and he smiles, because he knows, too. Knows that that garden in your heart will soon have a matching one in his. A mirror image of who you are. Who you’ve become. 

Things change. They always will. But so long as he is by your side, and so long as you are by his, you know. Everything will be okay. 

It's different, this time, when Taehyung presses you into the mattress. 

There is no rush. Because now you know for certain that all the time in the world is yours. He is yours forever. You are his.

The two of you are a mixture of tangled limbs and shared breaths, the feverish, irrepressible need to give yourself to each other nearly tangible. He breaks the kiss suddenly, and you’re about to break out in protest. That is, until you see him unbuttoning his shirt.

Inspired, you wiggle out of your own clothes, eyes locked on Taehyung's soft torso and the idea that you had married such a beautiful man, inside and out.

Looking back, you wonder if that was always inevitable. If you and Taehyung falling into each other had been written in the stars from day one, sealed as your fate from the moment he came up to you at that ball when you were teenagers. He was going to be a part of your life no matter what. Whether or not you ended up marrying him. But having him like this?

It makes it all worth it.

"Do you like what you see?" That old cocky smirk of his makes an appearance.

You raise a brow, choosing to omit a response as you unclasp your bra, letting it fall from your chest.

Taehyung swallows.

"Do you?" You tease.

His response comes in the form of bites down your necks and licks down your chest, stealing your breath from you. 

Your clothes are somewhere dispelled beside your passionate bodies, growing cold beside the way your two hot bodies warmed one another.

"You are so beautiful," Taehyung praises, fingers coming up to cup your breast, bringing it up to his mouth.

You mewl, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as his tongue toys with your pert bud, teeth grazing it ever so often just to hear the broken gasp that'd always follow. 

"And so sensitive too," he giggles, making you pout. His hands are gentle as if every touch means something. As if you mean something—no, everything—to him. And the most wonderful part is that he means everything to you, too. 

"Shut up." You roll your eyes playfully, gasping as his palm comes down the side of your thigh suddenly in warning. You bite down your swollen bottom lip at the gush of arousal that dampened your underwear in response.

"Watch your tone, love. Of both our positions, you are in the most compromising one." He reminds you. It isn't a threat, and while usually, that kind of tone would thrill you, you couldn't help but want his mouth back on yours already.

"You talk too much." You flop back onto the bed with a sigh. Taehyung watches with interest as your pretty tits bounce in consequence. Extending your hands out towards him, you give him a pouty look. "Just wanna kiss you."

"Is that all I am to you? Just a pair of lips for you to mack on? I've got news for you, sweetheart, there's a brain behind these ravishing good looks." He scoffs in feigned offense, sitting back on his heels.

You giggle.

It seems as though even during the most intimate of moments, Taehyung still found a way to be, well, Taehyung. At least that hasn’t changed. 

"Whatever, pretty boy. Why don't you come over here and put that mouth of yours to good use?" You purr, making his eyebrows raise in surprise.

"Oh? I don't remember you being this assertive when I was pounding you into the mattress last time."

“What, I can’t have a little fun as well?” You tease, grinning as you look up at him, raking your eyes over his figure. 

"Wanna have fun, love?," He murmurs into your ears, hands gripping either of your plush thighs. "Then spread those pretty legs for me, and I'll show you exactly how much fun you can have."

God, you love this man.

You oblige eagerly, breath quickening as he helped you press your knees by your chest, leaving the wet patch in your underwear on full display. 

"My pretty little wife." He sighs dreamily, making heat rush to your core.

Taehyung's cock stood loud and proud, a hot reminder of where the night would eventually lead to. Seriously, how did you get so lucky? You must've been a saint in a previous life, you decide right then. Or at least, the stars have chosen to be rather kind to you in this one.

"Gonna take these off," he mutters, mostly to himself, tugging the ruined fabric over your ass and down your legs, with your help, of course.

Despite your usual display of confidence, lying beneath your husband, spread out like this, has you feeling vulnerable and slightly insecure. But that insecurity vanishes, however, as he lets out a soft moan, fingers moving to spread your glossed lips apart.

"So fucking pretty, baby. Gonna make you feel so fucking good," he groans, leaning down to press his face near your most intimate part.

Pressing a tentatively lick against, his eyes flicker up to yourself, curious to see if you’re okay with him proceeding. And, well, it’s not like you’re going to say no, are you?

Embarrassingly, you rut against him, making him laugh as you drown in your own mortification.

"Need it that bad, huh?" He coos.

"Yes, please."

The rest of your plea is lost in a moan as Taehyung finds your clit, wrapping his pink lips around the sensitive muscle and giving it a generous suck. Your hands are in his hair before you can think to stop yourself, tugging at his scalp deliciously as his mouth makes its way with you.

Thank goodness for this apartment belonging to just the two of you as the noises that tumbled from your lips surely would've left a roommate blushing.

You're panting, begging for more even though you aren't sure how you'd even handle more. It comes as a delight and slight surprise as fingers suddenly slip inside, wasting no time to rub against your velvety smooth walls, curling themselves inside you.

"Fuck, Tae!" you cry out, eyes squeezing shut.

It was pure reflex. Up until now, you had been watching Taehyung intently, completely consumed by the way his mouth moves against you. How his tongue flicks against your needy clit cruelly. It just felt too fucking good.

You're so wet, positively dripping down his chin as he runs his hot muscle up and down the length of your pussy, devouring you like he hadn't eaten in months, and you were his first meal.

Taehyung’s nothing short of addicting, completely and utterly intoxicating, and you slip further and further to your demise with every lick he takes, every press of his tongue against your clit.

He has a hand pressed against the lower half of your torso, feeling the way you jerk and squirm as he makes a mess of you. You’re close and you know it, too, if not by the way you’re calling his name over and over again, then by the way your thighs tremble, hardly even strong enough to stay up.

"Let go for me, love. I've got you." He sounds so sweet, so angelic, despite how filthy what he was doing to you was.

His words are the push you need, and, like a rubber band that has been stretched past its limit, you finally snap, back arching off the bed as you come with a cry. White fills your vision, and your mind goes blank, only sounds of blissful static filling your ears.

His fingers hold up your quivering legs, mouth pressing kisses onto your pussy encouragingly until you simply can't bear it any longer, pushing his mouth away as you stutter out words of sensitivity and overstimulation.

“I’m going to have to request more of that throughout this marriage.” You manage to say once your vision and breath come back to you.

Grabbing one of your hands, Taehyung brings it to his mouth.

“All you need do is ask,” he replies, making you laugh as he presses a kiss to the back of your hand, always a gentleman

Not long after, you find yourself pressed against Taehyung, tongue running against his as he presses his hips into yours. He isn’t coy about his want for you, rolling his cock against your already sensitive center. Warm precum leaks onto your lower abdomen, and suddenly, all you can think about is having him inside you again.

“Taehyung?”

You don’t even need to ask. Hitching your leg around his thigh, he knows exactly what you’re seeking, lining up his leaking cock with your swollen entrance.

Pressing into you, he buries himself to the hilt, groaning out as your warmth envelopes him. You moan out so prettily for him, feeling tight and full with your first orgasm only minutes ago.

“You okay?” he hums, kissing your cheek.

You nod, ears warm at the intimacy of the moment. In many ways, this is nothing like your first time together. You are face to face, eye to eye, heart to heart. Between your bodies could be found more than just desire, but commitment. Devotion. Love. 

“I love you, Tae.” You gush, sighing out as he begins to rock into you.

He falters slightly at your confession but recovers quickly, intertwining his hand with yours and pressing it by your head.

Faintly, you realize. 

That was the first time you had ever told him that.

You look up at him, expecting some wide eyes or even a bit of a nervous tilt to his lips, but all you are met with is a glow. He beams down at you, and your heart swells. 

“I love you, too, Y/N,” he whispers, but you hear the words in your ears loud and clear.

Soft noises fill the room as the two of you become one—hearts synchronizing with one another in silent promise.

It was a promise unlike the one you had made to each other that day at the altar, for this one was real. This one was true.

You shutter with every thrust of his hips, your abused clit finding itself in the crossfire of Taehyung’s passionate motions.

Whimpering, you cling to him, overwhelmed and emotional, like your heart was about to burst. Taehyung lights a fire in you, sends lightning straight through your core. Every word, every smile, every kiss, every touch, they send shivers down your spine, tingles throughout your skin. It’s like you’re falling in love with him all over whenever you see him, whenever his deep brown eyes meet your own.

You remember being so afraid of love that you broke up with all your old boyfriends because of it. Because you couldn’t commit, because you were worried about your career, because they just didn’t give you that spark. But lying here pressed against him, against your husband, you aren’t afraid. Wrapped up around him, tangled up in him, you know. 

Between messy kisses and words of adoration, you find yourself growing closer and closer to your release. Brows furrowed and neck flushed, you come with a soft whimper of his name, coaxing his own orgasm out of him. He lets go inside you, painting you with his seed in a way that pleases you to no end.

Hand still in yours, he gives it a squeeze, pressing a kiss onto your damp chest, right over where your heart beats for him.

“I love you,” Taehyung says again when you meet his eyes, firmer this time, louder. Like he’s worried you didn’t believe him the first time. 

“I know,” you say with a giggle, the words going straight to your head—and your heart. 

Taehyung scowls. “What, no ‘I love you’ back? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“Well, only because you want one so badly,” you tease, pressing a quick kiss to his round button nose. “I love you, too, Tae. Always will.”

“I think I knew, then,” Taehyung says with a fond sigh, nostalgia overcoming his expression. “That first time we met. I knew you would be mine, one day.”

“You got lucky,” you scoff slightly. “But I’m glad things happened the way they did.”

“You’re my dream come true, Y/N,” he says. 

“And you are mine,” you murmur.

As the two of you drift off, all twisted up in each other, so mixed up you can’t figure out where you end and he begins, you think back to that night. That ball. 

“Who are you?” You ask, nose scrunched up in distaste. Before you stood a boy you had never met before, wearing shoes that were too big for him and a suit that was a touch too small. 

He grins at you, running a hand through his perfectly-styled hair fringe swiped neatly over his forehead, and he says, “your dream come true.”

And so it was. 

don’t forget to message me! ~ and don’t forget to message rose!

[littlemissfiore]

Small Worlds | Cassie Howard

pairing: cassie howard x f!reader

summary: cassie is messy and tries to find a way to cope with her problems by not confronting the issue, so she runs in the arms of someone just as messy as her.

content/warnings: homophobia, fwb, unhealthy relationships, slut-shaming, bitch!reader, mentions of sex, weed/cigarette usage, objectification, daddy issues, mentions of a fight, unrequited love(?), homophobic slur (d-word), cheating, toxic!reader

Cassie wasn’t too bright in her decision making. She was always caught up in her own problems to properly process how her decisions could affect her later on.

Cassie didn’t think through it properly when she decided to associate herself with you. It was supposed to be a strictly beneficial thing, at least the both of you agreed. Of course, Cassie was ignoring how a relationship like this could affect her later on.

She didn’t think too much of it, there was no way you two would build any other sort of chemistry aside from sexual. There would be no way Cassie could date someone that reminded her of her friend Maddie. You were outspoken and confident in your own sexuality, although you were very much different.

For one, you were only attracted to girls. There were always those guys that would come up to you, not-so-subtly asking for a chance. You would always reject them in a semi-nice way at first but depending on how they took their rejection, you didn’t mind knocking them - literally - down.

Cassie did remember in one of your many encounters you had mentioned you used to be in boxing. Or still were, she didn’t know, you never went further in a conversation of your own life. You’d usually put your clothes back on and leave or start up another sexual activity.

Maybe that's why Cassie found it so easy to keep you around. You didn't really offer much information about your life and you kept things simple. Cassie would still be able to swoon over guys who easily got her hopes up with meaningless words and she'd have your sexual relationship to fall back onto in case things didn't go her way.

Which was surprisingly a lot of times. You'd always have to begrudgingly listen to Cassie's sad stories about her life revolving around men. Even though it irked you to the core seeing how comfortable this girl had got around you, you felt forced to be there for her and lend a helping hand.

After that, Cassie had an affinity towards you. She no longer thought about your encounters as casual like you still did. It was hard to ignore the tender looks Cassie would give you in bed. How she would get shy talking to you in the hallways and sometimes ditch class to visit you during lunch.

"Cassie, what the fuck do you want?" You took a long drag from your blunt before exhaling it.

"I just... wanted to visit you," Cassie gave you a shy smile.

You gave Cassie a dirty look, wondering why she was acting so weird all of the sudden. She was hot, no doubt about that, but you wanted to tell her to fuck off. You had no desire to start a friendship with her much less a relationship. It was the perfect time to tell her your relationship was strictly about fucking.

Although you didn't say any of that to Cassie. You don't know why, maybe it was because you semi-related to her family situation. Cassie had an absent father, and while yours was still around he wasn't much accepting on the way you express yourself. Or maybe you just like to think it was good ass blunt that had you acting differently than usual.

"Goddamit..." You sighed. You held out your blunt to Cassie. "You wanna smoke with me then?"

You knew you had to tell her the truth. Cassie was laying right next to you, breathing heavily and staring at you with half-lidded eyes. You weren't ready for her affections, you weren't ready for anybody's affections. You had two options right now, break Cassie's spirit and not get her hopes up or indulge her in her fantasies for a while.

"[Name]..." Cassie gasped, seeing as you were leaning towards her face.

"Shut up, Cassie..." You dived in for a kiss.

You decided to indulge her for a moment.

━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━

You knew Cassie would open her big mouth and out the both of you. Not that you minded, it didn’t come to a shocker you were having a promiscuous relationship with somebody but more with who that somebody was. Cassie Howard.

The boys at school saw her as easy game, all it took for Cassie to be swooned for somebody was a few soft words here and there. Although now that everybody knew about the both of you guys, you were sure the boys would be all up on her ass.

And you were right, the whole week leading up to the party, everyone tried to swoon Cassie. Even the dickhead of the football team, Nate Jacobs was on her ass again. You already knew of him, and you had no ounce of respect for him at all. Although both of you always managed to stay at arms length to not get in a fight.

Nate had a different story with Cassie. During one of your many nights together, Cassia had a breakdown, all of the guilt building up inside her. She had told you she cheated on her ex and had a fling with Nate. Her guilt was drowning her, Cassie regretted the whole night but she never build up the courage to tell her best friend of her mistake.

That night you provided comfort for Cassie. Instead of doing your normal routine, you held her on the couch while watching movies and caressing her hair. Cassie felt safe with you but you felt the opposite.

While you admit you grew some sort of affection for her, the situation Cassie was in had dawned on you hard. You weren't hopeful for a perfect romantic relationship, but you knew that if you found the right one, you wouldn’t be dealing with this shit.

There were times throughout the day you thought about how it would feel like to be with Cassie and do normal couple things. She was pretty, and you didn’t mind her presence that much anymore. You did acknowledge you had potential to feel something more for her but with the bizarre spur of words that came out of Cassie’s mouth that day changed it.

You always knew Cassie wasn’t emotionally strong. While she had promised to be a better version of herself, she constantly kept on relying on boys to make her feel validated.

You were no idiot. You just chose to ignore shit that was happening around you constantly that didn’t concern you. Yet, recently you found yourself noticing little things Cassie did. You probably always noticed but you would refuse to acknowledge that.

It’s probably why you also refuse to acknowledge why Cassie keeps talking about Nate or staring at him in class. That may be why Nate has been keeping his eyes on you.

There had been a couple of incidents where Nate had called you a dyke. You had to be restrained by your friends to not beat his ass in the halls. While he would always leave with a shit eating grin on his face, you weren’t going to let him get away off the hook just because you couldn’t put your hands on him in school.

While you knew of Nate’s increased disdain on you had something to do with Cassie, you didn’t want to think of the bigger implications of their relationship.

You didn’t know if you had reached a breaking point after Cassie confessed to you her guilt. All you know is that your relationship with her was now changed. In a way where Cassie didn’t know, at least not yet.

One day, Maddie had approached you after school, finding you in the same spot Cassie would always find you. You cursed under your breath seeing her walk towards you, already annoyed at Maddie. You didn’t like her at all and the feeling was mutual. You two only behaved in front of Cassie but you were sure if she weren’t there, you and Maddie would’ve settled your issues in a fight.

“I need to talk to you,” said Maddie, crossing her arms as she stood in front of you.

You took a hit of your cigarette. “Well, you’re here,” You responded, blowing all of the smoke out in Maddie’s face.

Maddie’s face contorted in disgust, letting out an “ew”.

“This is serious, so listen, bitch!” exclaimed Maddie, concern written on her face. “I have a feeling Cassie is fucking Nate.”

She is.

“What the fuck does that have to do with me,” You said, facing away from Maddie.

“Cassie’s is my best friend and your girlfri-“

You glared at Maddie. “She isn’t my fucking girlfriend,” You hissed, putting your cigarette off on the walls of the school building.

“Okay, whatever, bitch!” yelled Maddie. “Fucking listen to me and listen to me good. If I find out Cassie fucked him, I won’t hesitate to hurt her!”

You shrugged. You were sure if Maddie had told you this before Cassie admitted to hooking up with Nate, you wouldn’t hesitate to put her ass to the ground. Now, the situation was different, you had let that comment slide maybe, just maybe, because you were feeling bitter Cassie was still searching for Nate.

You didn’t know when or how it happened but you clearly had stopped caring. Just like Cassie you had started being with someone else on the side. Worst off, with her best friend.

You and Maddie were both high. She somehow found you after a big fight with Nate and all it took was a smoking session before things went down hill. Before you knew it, Maddie was on top and making out with you.

You knew you could’ve stopped it, knowing that Cassie wouldn’t take it in well if she found out you and Maddie had sex. Although, you knew Maddie didn’t care in the moment. Which gave you more of a reason to just continue it.

‘Fuck it, she’ll thank me later,’ you thought. You hid behind the excuse that Cassie fucked Nate first, so it was entirely okay that Maddie was treating her friend the same way even if she didn’t know.

There was no need to act this irrationally and you knew these bad decisions would all lead to drama but it didn’t have to involve you. You were perfectly fine before meeting Cassie. All of her problems were her own, not yours.

You wanted to curse her, be angry at her and while you did unleash your anger at her in ways she would find out later, you couldn’t blame her.

Maybe your loneliness had caught up to you, you had mistaken those loving and tender looks Cassie would give you in bed as part of your imagination. All of those times she wanted to skip class or get to know you was probably her offering you a piece of her friendship, not love.

In reality, Cassie did want to pursue something further with you. She wanted so badly to stop the soft words Nate would give her to persuade her to continue being with him.

Maybe you’d still give her a chance, Cassie promised herself she would leave what she had with Nate to be with you, hopefully you’d still be waiting for her by that time.

Although for you, you had closed of the possibility of ever wanting to be with her.

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

The short adventures of Bonten's No4 part 4

Bonten x f reader

Warnings- Slight manga spoilers, suggestive content

Summary: Y/N is Bonten's first female member, she's their skilled and deadly No4. But that doesn't mean she wants eight fake fiances!

Chapter 4: Wait, how many fiances do I have!?

It was a difficult job, an assasination of some big shot guy trying to get in Bonten's way. Normally those wouldn't trouble you too much but this guy decided to put up a fight, you killed him in the end but not without tiring yourself out first. All you wanted was to get into your apartment and sleep. But just as you were fumbling with your keys your neighbour decided to skip over to you for a chat.

The second you hear her cheerful voice you let out a small groan. She's the worst neighbour you've ever had, the type of woman who acts nice on the outside but is all claws underneath. She's talking about something but you're not paying attention, you just want her to stop talking.

"Of course I've gone ahead and marked down single for you, it'll be a miracle if you can get a date right?"

Your eyes narrow at that sudden comment as she let's out airy laughter at her own joke. You glance down at the paper she pressed in your hand to discover a wedding invitation? So she's inviting you to her wedding then, no doubt in an attempt to show off to you.

"Actually I'll be bringing my fiance with me!"

The words are out before you can stop them but the shocked look on her face is worth it. She simply nods and heads back to her own apartment so you finally get into yours and to your precious bed.

It's not until the next morning that you realise the mistake you made yesterday.

"Where am I supposed to find a fake fiance on such short notice!?" You yell out as your cat meows back at you.

Wait, cat? Maybe the cute guy from the pet shop would agree to go with you? You quickly shake your head, there's no way you can ask a stranger for a favour like this. Which leaves you with only one choice, ask someone from work. But which one? And what if they say no? That would be too embarrassing. So you do the only logical thing you can think of, type out a message asking for a fake fiance and send it to the group chat. That way one of them will answer and you can just go with them.

The only problem was nobody ever answered.

Instead you turn up to your neighbours wedding alone and embarrassed. Figuring you would tell anybody who asked that your fiance had an emergency work meeting he had to attend. You sat down in the back of the church glaring at the empty seat beside you and wishing for this to be over.

The wedding hadn't started yet and all the guests were quietly chatting to each other. Well aside from the people up front, there seemed to be a group of people around one person, all of which were loudly talking and laughing. You craned your neck to see what was so funny when violet eyes met yours.

Ran grinned and lazily waved at you, beckoning you to sit up front with him. You stared wide eyed in shock for a moment before deciding to join him. It has to be better then sitting alone right?

"Everyone, meet my beautiful fiance." Ran leaned over pressing a kiss to your lips as he loudly proclaimed you as his. Everyone in his group of new friends gushed over you both, complimenting you on what a cute couple you make. You put on a fake smile trying to ignore how close Ran was to you.

Suddenly the music kicked in, signalling the start of the wedding. The ceremony thankfully went by quickly though it was hard to concentrate when Ran insisted on holding your hand the whole way through.

After the ceremony Ran escorted you to the reception hall where he then left to get you both drinks. You sat pondering how you kept getting into these situations when you suddenly felt someone hug you from behind.

"Enough Ran, I get it." You snapped at him.

"Ran? Try again."

You turn around quickly to find Mochi standing behind you. He doesn't even give you a chance to question him before stealing Ran's seat and kissing you on the cheek.

"Can't let my fiance attend a wedding alone right?"

Panicking you nod along, there's too many people around to make a scene right now. And Mochi is preferable over Ran, he's a lot less likely to tease you at least. Maybe if you can get Ran to leave this will all work out? But first you need to find him. Getting up from your seat you tell Mochi to wait here for you as you leave to find Ran.

Unfortunately you don't get far before someone starts shouting out to you.

"Hey babe, I picked up the condoms like you wanted, anything for my pretty fiance!"

Great, now everyone is staring at you. You glare at Rindou as he throws an arm over your shoulder, pulling you in close for a kiss. Being careful to keep you face happy for the other guests you bite his lips as he kisses you. That should show that jerk!

"I didn't realise you like it rough." Rindou whispers to you with a smug look on his face.

Rindou then leads you to the bar where you run into Ran who looks at you both in suprise and something else? You gulp as you find yourself sandwiched in-between both haitani brothers who seem to be having a staring contest. You quickly order yourself a drink, this is going to be a long night.

People were definitely staring now, the haitani brothers were having a competition on who could annoy you the most. They wouldn't stop touching you. From Rindou stroking your hair, to Ran gently cupping your face and not to mention the hands on your thighs. They were definitely trying to out do each other in some way.

You were bright red in the face and ready to give up your nice facade to punch them both when someone suddenly grabs your hand, pulling you up from your seat. And you find yourself staring into the eyes of your saviour.

Koko.

"Would you care to join me for this dance?"

You enthusiastically nod at Koko's question, anything to get away from your previous "fiances".

You let out a surprised gasp as Koko pulls your body against his. Koko just rolls his eyes at you before pointing out it's just how you're supposed to dance. Feeling embarrassed you let him lead you around the dancefloor, happily twirling the night away with Koko.

You're actually surprised at how well he dances, though he's not looking at you. Actually he seems to be looking everywhere but you, you pout slightly not sure as to why this is bothering you so much. Koko finally feels your eyes on his and glances at you, causing his cheeks to heat up as he glances away again. Is he embarrassed? Before you ask the song ends and he leaves with the excuse of getting some air.

What to do now? Go back to Mochi? The Haitani's? Chase after Koko?

Instead a random woman approaches you to give her congratulations. You stare at her with a confused look as she places a hand on your stomach and asks about the baby. You start choking at hearing the word baby which concerns the woman. She tells you to relax as she leads you to your "fiance".

What you wasn't expecting was to see Kakucho talking to a group of people about how excited he is to be a father. He looks nervous as he spots you and quickly walks over to you thanking the woman for taking care of you. The other guests watch as Kakucho kisses you then leans down to press a kiss on your stomach for the "baby".

"Y/n, it's good to see you and Izana, sorry I'm late."

Izana? Ok so not only has Kakucho made up a fake baby to convince these people, he's also named it. You vaguely wonder where he got the name from before shaking your head. Concentrate! How do pregnant woman act again?

You lean on Kakucho as you complain about how much your feet ache. He kisses the top of your head then excuses you both from the group to find somewhere to rest. As soon as you realise no one's watching you punch him in the arm for setting you up like that.

"Hey y/n you shouldn't hit your fiance!"

"Kakucho, we're not engaged!"

He frowns slightly at your statement but eventually nods and apologises. He explains that he panicked when people started asking him questions and accidentally mentioned a baby. That's understandable you guess? But you're still mad at him.

Suddenly the lights dim and the best man starts giving some speech before he passes the mike over to Takeomi?

You and Kakucho glance at each other in disbelief before turning back to the stage. The bride and groom look on in confusion as Takeomi makes up some story about knowing them, you're not sure how he got mixed up with one of the groomsmen but it's an entertaining mix up. Until he decides to bring you into it, he must have seen you laughing in the audience and decided to get revenge.

Suddenly he's talking about his lovely fiance and a spotlight is suddenly cast over you as he calls you up on stage. Your neighbour stares daggers at you as you join Takeomi on stage. Takeomi gives you a panicked look, clearly wanting help to get out of this situation. You think for a minute before you come up with a plan.

"Ok everyone it's time for the bride to throw the bouquet!" You loudly declare.

Nothing happens at first which panics you then a lot of the female guests start excitedly lining up to try and grab the winning catch. Your neighbour sighs as she launches the bouquet into the air. The unmarried female guests all make a grab for it but suddenly a pink haired man comes swooping in to steal the catch.

"Hey y/n look what I got!"

"Sanzu you are not an unmarried woman! And where did you even come from!?"

You shout back at Sanzu as he just grins at you and waves the bouquet in your face.

"Looks like you have to marry me now and-"

Sanzu suddenly cuts his sentence off, his care free attitude slipping away as he glares at someone behind you. You quickly grab his arm to stop him reaching for his gun then turn around to see what the problem is.

You find the bride throwing a fit behind you, apparently you ruined her wedding by taking all the attention for yourself. One of the bridesmaids tries to calm her down by suggesting she cuts the cake now. The distraction apparently works as your neighbour saunters over to the curtain hiding the cake behind it. But as the curtain is pulled aside everyone let's out an audible gasp.

Behind the curtain is of course your boss, happily cutting himself what looks to be his third slice of cake. He pauses as everyone stares at him before waving at you. The bride furiously turns to you.

"Do you know that man!?"

"No."

"Yes! She's my fiance!"

You curse Mikey's answer which is sure to get you in even more trouble. He calmly walks over to you, throwing an arm round your shoulder and giving you a cake flavoured kiss. But this just causes someone else to gasp.

"But y/n i thought I was your fiance!?"

"No she's my fiance!"

"I saw her first!"

"Oh really? Well I gave her a baby!"

"How do you know it's not my baby!?"

"Well I'm going to marry her before all of you!"

"I'm the boss she should be with me!"

"I'm the reason she joined us in the first place!"

The wedding guests all stare as the eight men break into an argument. To them it looks like a serious fight but you saw what they were actually doing. They all have a playful tint in their eyes as they enjoy their play fight. Maybe in another life they could've been actors or something. But for now they're too busy having fun running your annoying neighbours wedding.

You simply grab your purse and leave the reception, next time you would just suck it up and ask the cute guy at the pet shop instead.

Previous chapter next chapter

[writingintheshadowsforever]

Yelena Belova x Reader Steal Your Heart pt.1

Summary: You're an infamous thief who is known to be willing to steal anything from anybody, and you actually have the skills to do it too. Which means you would make a great asset to Valentina if she could actually pin you down that is. You live off the grid and it's basically impossible to locate you. So when she catches word that an enemy has sent you on a job to steal some top secret files from her. Yelena is put on the job to bring you in.

You knew this was going to be a tough job, and there was a voice in the back of your head. Saying that no amount of money was worth it, and it wasn't because the job was beyond your level of skill. No it was because of who you would be stealing from exactly.

Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.

You never meant the woman in person, but only an idiot living under a rock in the criminal world wouldn't know her. The powerful woman made it her business to know who was the best in the every game, and to scout out potential recruits for whatever she needed. A rumor got back to you a couple of months ago that you were on her radar, and ever since then. You decided to make it your mission to stay out of her range. What she wanted you had no idea or any intention on finding out.

But this job could change that one wrong move or calculation, and your plan would fail.

"You don't make mistakes or miscalculations we can't afford to" a voice of old friend said.

You thought back to your early days learning how to be a thief, and using your powers to gain the advantage. The only reason this plan wouldn't work is if it was a trap set by Valentina herself. But you highly doubted that because if she thought it was that easy. She would've done it a long time ago. You were just being paranoid and stressing yourself out the day before a big job. Knowing it was best to just get some rest and relax. You walked away from the table that had the schematics of the building on it, and ventured into the giant bathroom. A nice hot bubble bath, some five star room service, and a power nap is all you needed to prepare for this job.

Nothing could or would go wrong it was just another job.

"Hey there's a problem with the new assignment you gave me Valentina." Yelena said falling into step with the woman as she left her office.

"I don't believe there is unless you're turning it down" Valentina replied her voice holding a dark tone.

It didn't phase the blonde at all as she held up the file and flipped it open. "You forgot to mention exactly where the target is located."

"I didn't forget to mention it no one knows where the Shadow is located. But you won't need to worry about that anyway she will be here tonight."

"Well if she is coming here then why do I need to go after her?" Yelena asked frustrated

"Because she's not coming here for a tea party. Her mission is too steal some very sensitive information on a new super formula for our enemies. If you're not careful she'll be in and out before you even know it. I want you to wait for her to show up, knock her unconscious, and bring her to me."

"You're not coming in tomorrow am I to bring her to your home." Yelena said more joking rather than being serious.

"Yes I've been trying to get my hands on this thief for way too long." Valentina answered sharply.

Later that night

Out here running along the rooftop of a government building to find the old air duct. That still existed somehow because they forgot to get rid of it. When redesigning everything this was your element, and the rush of adrenaline running through your veins at this very moment reminded you of that. You couldn't believe that you were actually doubting yourself and abilities. There was a reason that the Shadow was the most infamous thief in the whole world. Because there was no job too difficult for you to complete.

You slid to a stop in front of the air duct, and pulled your dagger out of the sheath holstered on your thigh. Once the vent door was pried off you crawled in and slid down the duct shaft coming to a stop in a dark room. You were able to kick the vent door off with your feet catching it before it fell to the floor, and made to much noise. The air duct led you to a printing room from the looks of it. The room was dark and empty, but you could hear footsteps and distant voices in the hallway. This was a government building so it would never be empty of people, unless it was a holiday. But no matter you've stolen from more well-populated areas during daytime before. This would be a walk in the park.

Once the all the footsteps and fading voices were gone. You opened the door just a bit to peek out making sure it was clear. Not a person in sight but there were some annoying security cameras plastered everywhere. You dug your cellphone out of your pocket, and pulled up the buildings security system. That you had managed to successfully hack in before you left. Usually you would go through the trouble of creating a fake loop of a clear hallway. But you decided not to bother with that this time considering the security room was right across the hall, and if your info was right. There was only one guard watching the cameras right now on this wing of the building. The other two would be patrolling right about now, and would be gone for another twenty-four minutes.

You had to retrieve the files and get out in that window of time. In order to make a clean getaway with no delays or problems. If not then you would have to get your hands a little dirty. You took the pocket watch resting on your collarbone in your hand, and pressed down on the tiny button. It started ticking which started the countdown without any hesitation you turned off the building's whole security system. Which rendered all alarm settings and cameras useless you opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. Right as the guard was coming out to go off and find help instead your fist found his face twice knocking him out.

A giant hand formed out of darkness caught the guard before he could hit the ground, and carried the man back into the room. You laid him in the chair and shut the door then your eyes scanned the hallway. Not a soul in sight you started your journey to secret room where the government kept all the top secret stuff. It didn't took no longer than five minutes to reach the office. That contained the doorway to the secret room, but the lock was bit more advanced than you expected. So picking that lock cost you another three minutes, luckily though the opening the doorway only required a fingerprint.

Finally you were in the room that was filled with filing cabinets, a couple of desks, and some deposit boxes lined up on the wall. You already knew which one you needed, and the fingerprint gave instant access. With ten minutes to spare you were walking out of the office closing the door behind you. "Just like you taught me Remy" you murmured to yourself turning around to make your escape. Instead you came face-to-face with a blonde woman in tight black suit. There were a pair of batons strapped to her thigh, and some type of weapon hooked on her wrist. Yeah she was definitely here to stop you which meant this was indeed a trap.

"You could make this easier on yourself and just surrender now" she said. Her hands resting on her batons indicating she already knew what direction this would be going in.

"Now where's the fun in that" You asked with a small smirk pulling the hood on to cover your face.

Her lips twitched upward in a small smirk and then she was right in front of you. Swinging a baton up aiming right for your face you managed to lean back just in time dodging it. "Careful sweetheart this face is too pretty to be bruised" You said spinning your body around her, and bringing your elbow up to deliver a harsh blow to the back of her head. But somehow the blonde managed to turn around in time to catch your arm in a tight grip. With a sharp tug she was pulling you to her and a swift kick to your back sent you sprawling onto the floor.

You landed your knees hissing in pain but the deposit box was still in your grasp. Which meant you had no reason to actually stick around and entertain this chick. She was pretty and while on any other day you wouldn't mind sticking around to play. You were determined to not get caught and land in the clutches of Valentina.

With her no longer blocking the path to freedom you took running down the hallway. Hearing her curse and give chase a solid three minutes had went by giving you seven to make it out now. If your old partner was here he would be chastising you for getting distracted. Your legs was carrying you as fast they could go, not even slowing down for the sharp turn. You bumped into the wall stumbling for a second which gave the blonde the break she needed to tackle you. The momentum sent both of flying back into a door that wasn't fully shut.

The two of you tumbled back into the room with her on top of you. She didn't need time to recover her hand reached into the holster on her thigh pulling out one of the batons. Which lit up with electricity her other arm was on your throat pinning your head down to the floor. "I really didn't want to do it this way, but since you prefer that pretty little face remains unscathed. I don't see another way" she said ready to bring the baton down. Staring her in the eyes you watched as her face went from triumph to fear. As a shroud of darkness surrounded both of you the baton clattered to the floor, and she let up on your throat as her vision was thrown into darkness.

"You're not the only one with cool tricks blondie" you gloated twisting your legs up to grab her, and fling her off of you. She let out a grunt in pain as she hit the floor on her back. The ticking on your pocket watch was winding down faster meaning you had maybe a minute left at the most. You pulled the darkness back in while scrambling to your feet, and rushing for the door. The blonde woman had her vision back and saw you leave the room. You were hoping for a bigger head start but no she was right on you again. She held up her wrist, aimed, and shot a projectile. Freedom was so close that you could practically taste just a couple more feet. But right as you were approaching the door something slammed into you from behind. The next thing you knew this red electrifying rope was wrapping around your body securing your arms to your side. The force of it knocked you onto the floor.

You managed to pull yourself up into a sitting position. The blonde walked over and kneeled down in front of you just as the pocket watch went off. "Well I guess that means you're out of time sweetheart" she said with a smirk. Her hand reaching to take the pocket watch and press the button silencing it. She yanked on the chain pulling your head to down so your ear was to her mouth. "All that and you still held on to the goods. I see why they hired you too bad it's over for you now."

On the inside you were seething and freaking out. This wasn't a trap set by Valentina herself she just a saw an opportunity and took it. You knew you should've listened to your instincts and turned the job down, but your pride got the better of you. Now you were going to pay for it if you didn't find a way out of this. Your eyes scanned the hallway looking for a way out with an urgency you never felt before. At first all hope seemed to be lost until you caught sight of a small shadow peeking out from under a door just a few feet away.

You grinned thrilled that the blonde couldn't see your face. "Hey blondie do you know why they call me the Shadow."

"No and stop calling me that my name is Yelena" she shot back loosening her grip on your pocket watch. But it was too late you snapped your head back so hard the chain broke, and then you swung your head forward with as much force as you could manage. Connecting your forehead with her's creating a sickening crunch Yelena stumbled back with a cry of pain. Your pocket watch still in her hand.

Then you were scooting your body towards that small ink of shadows desperately. By the time Yelena recovered and was on her feet looking at you furiously. You were had made it and turned back too look at her. Your gaze drifted to your precious pocket watch, but you had no choice but to leave it behind. It would hurt but at least you had the deposit box still, and you could always return for it later.

"Its because I always disappear into the shadows" were your last words to her. Yelena frowned and leapt towards you but as soon as your hand touched the shadow peeking out from the door. You vanished your body merging with the shadows, and transporting you away. The electrifying net snapped together when you disappeared. Yelena let out a cry of frustration already pulling out her phone to dial Valentina.

Just exactly how could the woman forget to mention your powers to her. Her gaze fell upon the pocket watch in her hand, and she decided right then the two of you would meet again. And next time you wouldn't escape her so easily.

Taglist: @wandanatvoid @yelenabelovasgf @romanoffomixam @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @xxromanoffxx